THE 

DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH 

IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



WITH NOTICES OF THE OTHER DENOMINATIONS. 



REV. JOHN M'CARTER, 

LADI SMITH, XATAL. 



" Hy stelt de woestyn tot een waterpoel, en het dorre land tot watertogten. En Hy 
doet de hongerigen aldaar wonen, en zy sticliten eene stad ter woning. En Hy zegent 
hen, zoodat zy zeer vermenigvuldigen/'— Ps. evil 



EDINBUKGH: 
W. & C. INGLIS, 46 HANOVEE STEEET. 

LONDON : J. NISBET AND CO. CAPETOWN : N. H. MABAIS. 
1869. 



LC Control Number 




2005 447290 



PEEFACE. 



The Dutch Reformed congregations in South 
Africa form a section of Presbyterianism re- 
garding which little is known in Britain. So 
entirely has it been ignored that we find, on 
opening so popular a book as the Ecclesiastical 
Encyclopaedia of Dr Eadie, where a list is 
given of all the Presbyterian denominations, 
and mention made of some having ten or 
eleven, (in one case six), ministers, this 
Church, which in its various branches has 
upwards of eighty, is not so much as named. 

The knowledge possessed by the English 
public of the " Boers " is mainly derived 
from incidental allusions in the pages of 
travellers who have visited South Africa, and 
in reports of missionaries to the natives. 



iv 



PREFACE. 



These last have almost always spoken from 
an unfavourable point of view, having seldom 
found occasion to mention the Boers, except 
with reference to one painful subject— the 
charge of ill-usage of the natives, and hostility 
to the missions. It is surely fair that the 
redeeming and favourable features of their 
case should also be known. 

The writer of the following sketch finds 
cause to regret his limited knowledge of the 
subject. He has freely used the help of such 
books as he had at command, besides the 
personal knowledge acquired during several 
years' pastoral labour among the South African 
Dutch colonists. Such as it is, may our 
Divine Master be pleased to bless it as a 
means of awakening a deeper interest in that 
land, and more especially in that section of 
His people of whom it speaks. This history 
being closely intertwined with the general 
history of the colony, it has been found neces- 
sary to mention many political events. 



PREFACE. 



V 



From the following books, amongst others, 
valuable aid has been received, for which he 
hereby offers his cordial thanks to the respec- 
tive writers : — Five Lectures on the Emigration 
of the Dutch Farmers, &c, by the Hon. H. 
Cloete, LL.D. ; Hall's Geography of South 
Africa ; Redevoering by het Tweede Eeuw- 
feest, enz. door A. Faure, Volksleesboek, 
Kaapstad, 1868; Borcherd's Memoirs; and 
The Pictorial Album of Cape Town, Juta, 
1866. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER L 
The Period of the Dutch Rule. 

Page 

Founding of the Colony — Van Riebeek — First days 
of the Reformed Church — French Refugees — 
Growth of the Colony — Climate — Habits of the 
People — Condition in 1795 — Limits of the Colony 
— Population — Slave Population — George Schmidt 
— Government of the Reformed Church — Spiritual 
Condition — Social Condition — Political Discon- 
tent, ...... 1 

CHAPTER II. 

The Cape becomes an English Colony. 

The Colony taken by the English — Restored to the 
Dutch— Taken a Second Time — Moral Results of 
the Conquest, . . . . . 26 

CHAPTER in. 

Growth oe the Chuech 1806-1868. 

Relation of the Church to the State — Passing of 
Church Ordinance— Extension of the Church — 
Missions — Government Grants — Education, . 34 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Page 



Collision with the Civil Courts. 



Case of Darling — Case of Hanover, 



47 



CHAPTER V. 



Extra-Colonial Churches. 



Discontent of Dutch Colonists — Emigrations from the 
Colony — Massacres in Natal — Natal made a British 
Colony — Formation of the Free State — Formation 
of the Transvaal Republic — Churches in the 
Transvaal — Dutch Reformed Church of Natal — 
Church in the Free State — Education — Statistics, 77 



The White Population — The Native Races — Mission 
Societies — Mutual Moral Influences of the Re- 
spective Races — Notices of Several Denominations, 104 



Modes of Ministerial Labour — Spiritual Condition — 
Deteriorating Influences— What the Bible has 



CHAPTER VI. 



General Survey oe Parties. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Present Condition — Prospects. 



done — Hopeful Prospects, 



128 



Church Ordinance, 



149 



THE DUTCH KEEOKMED CHUECH 

IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

When the sea-route to India, by way of the 

Ca/pe, was opened by the early Portuguese 

navigators, it soon became frequented by the 

ships of various nations. These were days 

of the marvellous maritime activity of the 

United Netherlands. The Dutch East India 

Company was established in 1602. Forty 

Dutch vessels were then regularly trading to 

India.* For these the Southern point of 

•Africa was found a convenient house of call 

for obtaining fresh water and provisions. It 

* Motley. 
A 



2 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

did not occur, however, to 1 any European 
nation to make a settlement there until one 
hundred and sixty-six years after its discovery. 

On the 6th of April 1652 three Dutch 
vessels, with a small body of settlers on board, 
came to anchor in Table Bay. The object of 
the Company in sending them was not to 
form a colony in the modern sense of the 
word. It rather discouraged the extension 
of the settlement. Its instructions to the 
settlers were to make a garden for vegetables, 
and also trade with the natives for cattle, so 
that the ships of the Company might at all 
times be able to obtain the necessary refresh- 
ments. The colony was thus originally a 
possession of the Dutch East India Company, 
and continued under its management for one 
hundred and fifty years, until taken by the 
British. 

The lands of Southern Africa were then 
in the undisturbed possession of the various 
Hottentot and Kafir tribes. What their gene- 
ral condition must have been can be imagined 
from the portraits of the kindred races pre- 
sented in the pages of Livingston and Baker. 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 3 

Along the shores of Table Bay, where smiling 
gardens and plantations, churches and villas, 
now enliven the landscape, and forty thousand 
inhabitants live in comfort, a few wandering 
Hottentots, the lowest and laziest of their 
race, picked up a miserable subsistence of 
roots and shellfish. 

The entire colony, numbered at first only 
ninety-one souls. Near a little stream under 
the brow of the magnificent Table Mountain, a 
small wooden fort was built, around which the 
beautiful city of Cape Town has since grown 
up. These settlers have multiplied, mainly 
by natural increase, to hundreds of thousands, 
and spread from shore to shore and far inwards, 
until now their foremost hunters and traders 
sometimes pass Lake Ngami, distant 1700 
miles from the Cape. We shall try to relate 
how they have fared as to their religious 
interests during two hundred years, and in 
what religious condition they are now living. 

It has proved a merciful providence for 
• Southern Africa, that, though Popish Portugal 
was the means of its discovery, its colonization 
was reserved for Protestant Holland. Had it 



4 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

been otherwise, the religious condition of half a 
continent, as regards both the white and the 
coloured population, would have been very 
different from what it is. Instead of peaceful 
industrious thriving communities, with numer- 
ous and varied circles of Christian activity, we 
should have expected to find countries analogous, 
socially and religiously, to Mexico or Brazil. 

The Dutch were not in the habit of leaving 
their foreign possessions unsupplied with the 
means of grace. At Ceylon, and at their 
several stations on the Indian coasts, ministers 
were sent to labour, though very few traces of 
these Churches now exist. The Dutcjj Reformed 
Church does not differ in respect of doctrine, 
though it does slightly differ as to the details of 
Church polity from the Presbyterian Churches 
of Scotland. Its Standards are the Heidelberg 
Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the 
Canons of the Synod of Dort. 

From such evidence as has reached us, the 
leader of the colony, John Anthony Van Rie- 
beek, seems to have been not only a faithful 
servant of the Company, but a man not want- 
ing in respect for religion, and a friend of the 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 5 

coloured races. His diary furnishes proof that 
he acknowledged the good hand of God in the 
prosperity which the colony enjoyed, and felt 
the need of His continued blessing. He also 
used his influence to provide instructors both 
for the Europeans and the coloured people. 
Among others, his diary contains the following 
entry : — 

" 6th April 1654. — This is the anniversary 
of our safe arrival at this place, under God's 
holy guidance, with the ships Dromedary, 
Heron and Good Hope, to build and establish 
this fort and colony according to the orders of 
our lords and masters. And as the Lord God 
in all these matters, until this date, has granted 
many blessings, so that it succeeded well and 
prospered according to desire, — it is resolved, 
and for the first time commenced, to celebrate 
this day, being the 6th of April, in honour of 
God, and with thanksgiving, so that it be insti- 
tuted for ever as a fixed day of thanksgiving 
and prayer, and that thus the benefits granted 
to us by the Lord, may not be forgotten by 
our posterity, but always kept in memory to 
the glory of God." 



6 THE PEEIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

For the first few years the colonists had 
only the services of a ca^echist, who accom- 
panied them from Europe. He conducted 
morning and evening worship, held Sabbath 
services, instructed the children, and was even 
the means of bringing one or two of the heathen 
to the knowledge of the truth. An ordained 
minister occasionally calling at the Cape on his 
voyage to or from the East Indies, sojourned 
for a time and administered Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. 

The first minister, John Van Arckel, arrived 
in 1665, in the fourteenth year of the colony 's 
existence. An ej^er and a deacon were then 
chosen, and twenty-four persons sat down at 
the Lord's table. Since that day the church 
membership has rather more than doubled 
itself every twenty years. The professing 
membership of the Church, including all its 
sections, may now be computed at somewhat 
over sixty thousand. 

In 1685 a second congregation was formed 
at SteJJbenbosch, distant twenty-six miles from 
Capetown. On the occasion of the election 
of a kirk-session or consistory for that congre- 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 



7 



gation, the State betrayed, for the first time, 
that spirit of aggression and encroachment on 
the liberties of the Church, which has proved 
most baneful to her vitality ever since.* A 
regulation was made, and its observance, at 
Capetown at least, stringently insisted on, 
that half the members of session should be 
chosen by the government, and be officials of 
the State. No church meeting might be held 
unless the State were represented. This state 
of matters lasted down to 1842, in which year^ 
a government commissioner sat for the last 
time in the Cape Synod. But from the last 
remnants of State control the Church has 
scarcely yet shaken herself free. 

The year 1C88 brought a new element of 
population, of much importance to the indus- 
trial development, and not less to the religious 
life, of the colony. A portion of the French 
Protestants exiled after the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, found a hospitable refuge in 
Holland, as in days of persecution many of 

* Medevoering bij het Tiveede Eeuw-feest, enz. door Abra- 
ham Faure. Kaapstad, 1852. From this valuable pam- 
phlet many of the facts in the present chapter have been 
taken. 



8 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

the Lord's people in England and Scotland 
had also found. Some of these were assisted 
by William of Orange to emigrate to the Cape. 
They numbered eighty families (one hundred 
and fifty souls), and though the use of the French 
language soon ceased, their descendants are 
easily known by the names they bear. It 
will readily be believed that the influence of 
these good men was like a wholesome salt on 
the whole population. The majority of gospel 
ministers who have been natives of the Cape 
have been of their descendants. They intro- 
duced the cultivation of the vine and other 
fruits into South Africa. The districts then 
allotted to them are still amongst the most 
beautiful and fertile in the whole land. These 
French immigrants, with their minister, Pierre 
Simond, formed the third congregation (the 
Paarl), but the government, in the despotic 
spirit then prevailing, compelled them, with 
the commencement of J 700, to abandon French 
preaching, and conform in language, as well as 
mode of worship, to the Dutch Reformed service. 

In the year 1700 the colony might be de- 
scribed, in general terms, as a circuit of about 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 9 



eighty miles round Capetown, (the divisions 
of Capetown. Stellenbosch, Paarl, Malmesburg, 
and a part of Caledon). The white inhabitants 
had risen in number to nearly 2000. the slaves 
were somewhat over that number. In the 
remoter districts the people were already fall- 
ing into deep religious neglect. 

Travelling, particularly with wheeled 
vehicles, was in those days extremely 
difficult. To cross the mountain ranges in 
those parts, where in recent times excellent 
roads have been cut. the wagons had first to 
be taken to pieces, and the wheels, shafts, and 
other parts carried over on the backs of oxen 
or horses, after which the vehicle was put 
together again. When little children, there- 
fore, had to be brought to baptism, they were 
carried by their mothers on horseback over 
those mountains. It will surprise no one to 
learn that these people seldom came to public 
worship. They lived in great ignorance and 
spiritual indifference. 

But the spiritual condition of these peasants 
will be better understood, when we know a 
little of the climate and physical character of 



10 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

the land, and the consequent modes of life of 
its people. A country ill-supplied with water, 
and subject to periodical droughts, tends to 
foster in its inhabitants pastoral or nomadic 
habits, a wandering and unsettled mode of 
life ; and this readily brings with it a rude 
independence of character, and unwillingness 
to submit to the restraints of law. Such was 
a very large portion of the Cape Colony. 
Consistently w T ith the barren and arid char- 
acter of the soil, the farms were granted in 
large areas, consisting of never less than six 
thousand, but in some districts extending to 
fifteen or twenty thousand acres. This tended 
to confirm the colonists more and more in 
their purely pastoral and nomadic habits. 
They became weaned from the desire to culti- 
vate their lands, and lost that attachment to 
particular localities which naturally results from 
agriculture and the improvement of the soil. 

Their flocks and herds were their sole care 
and delight. Whenever these increased and 
multiplied they were happy and contented, 
but the moment these suffered, they were as 
ready as Arabs to strike their tents, or rather, 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 11 



to pack their wagons, and go forth to the 
right hand or to the left, in search for lands 
where late rains promised more abundant 
grass and water for their cattle. 

This mo.de of life, in a country without 
navigable rivers, into which the railway has 
scarcely penetrated, and where the means of 
locomotion are generally slow and difficult, has 
proved very prejudicial to their moral advance- 
ment. They have gone to a great extent beyond 
the reach of the church and the school. Their 
civilization has retrograded. 

So early as 1743, the governor, the Baron 
Van Imhoff, after a journey into the interior, 
reported "that he had observed, with amaze- 
ment and sorrow, how little interest was taken 
in the public services of religion, and in what 
a depth of indifference and ignorance in this 
respect a great part of the country people 
were living, so that they seemed more like a 
gathering of blinded heathens than a colony 
of European Christians." By the exertions of 
this governor, two additional congregations, 
those of Malmesbury and Tulbagh, were formed. 

We shall now pass over the space of a cen- 



12 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

tury and a-half from the planting of the colony, 
and attempt a survey of the state in which it 
was when the English first came, in 1795. 

The colony had now expanded to a mean 
length of 550 miles, and a mean breadth of 
233 miles, or an area equal to that of the 
British Isles. The colonists had been gradu- 
ally spreading over the lands occupied by the 
Hottentot and Bushman tribes. These, too 
weak to make resistance, looked with no satis- 
faction on the arrival of the whites in their 
midst. As the latter were taking their lands, 
they retaliated by driving off cattle, and the boers, 
taking up their long-barrelled hunting-guns, ex- 
acted a bloody and cruel revenge. The colonists, 
ground down and oppressed by those in authority, 
spread themselves thus, heedless of the threats 
and admonitions of their government. That 
they did not spread more widely to the north 
and east was owing to the fact, that along 
their northern line the arid deserts skirting 
the Orange Biver offered little temptation to 
transgress the boundary, while at the eastern 
extremity they were fronted by the warlike 
and independent Amakoze Kafirs, who, far 



THE PEKIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 13 



from allowing any inroad into their territory, 
commenced a system of aggression upon the 
colonists. The farms, particularly in the east, lay 
very remote from one another, and between them 
lived the Hottentots in their miserable kraals 
and smoky huts. They still went unclothed, 
only covered with a kaross. The governor 
had forbidden, under pain of severe punish- 
ment, that any Hottentot should be enslaved. 
Still it was frequently done, as slaves proper 
were dear to purchase. Many Hottentots and 
slaves ran away from their masters, particularly 
if badly used, and formed themselves into bands 
to rob and murder, and make the outlying 
farms unsafe. 

The population amounted to twenty-one 
thousand whites, more than twenty- five thou- 
sand slaves, and fourteen thousand Hotten- 
tots. There were now sgyen Dutch Reformed 
congregations (Graaff-Reinet, and Sw§llendam 
having been added in 1790 and 1799 respec- 
tively), and ten ministers, — Capetown being a 
•collegiate charge with three ministers. These, 
along with the Lutheran pastor at Capetown, 
comprised very nearly all the spiritual instruc- 



14 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 



tors in the colony. Within the same limits 
there are in our days more than forty congre- 
gations of the Dutch Reformed Church, as 
many of the Anglican and Wesleyan churches, 
and a not much smaller number of mission 
congregations. 

We have mentioned the slave population. 
Slavery was introduced in the second year of 
the colony's existence. It seems to have as- 
sumed in South Africa a peculiarly mild form. 
Cases of ill-usage of slaves seem to have been 
rather the exception than the rule. In theory, 
at least, the duty was recognised of instructing 
them equally with the whites. We read of 
Van Arckel, the first minister, that on his 
arrival in 1665, he baptised eight heathen 
children on the promise of their owners to 
bring them up in the fear of the Lord. For 
those slaves who were the property of the 
State, a church was built in Capetown, and 
many became church members. From 1665 
to 1731, there stand recorded in the Church 
books the baptisms of 1121 slave children, 
and forty-six adults. A Government regula- 
tion was passed in 1683, that whenever a 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH UTILE. 1 5 

slave was received into the Christian Church, 
he was ipso facto free. Not a few were thus 
emancipated. 

In the country districts, where the spiritual 
interests of the Europeans were so greatly 
neglected, the slaves must of course have fared 
no better. Still, the religiously disposed por- 
tion of the colonists seem not to have been 
unmindful of the highest interests of their 
domestics, by allowing them to join in their 
family worship and otherwise. Several of the 
coloured congregations, at present managed by 
the German and other societies, were originally 
Home Missions, commenced by local commit- 
tees of the Dutch colonists for the benefit of 
their slaves. 

Missions to the heathen were only being 
commenced. At Genadendal, three devoted 
Germans had resumed the work, which, begun 
by George Schmidt in 1737, had been inter- 
rupted for nearly fifty years. As this was the 
earliest South African mission, and the only 
one up to the period to which our sketch has 
come, it may not be uninteresting to make a 
passing mention of the work of Schmidt. 



16 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 



The honour of beginning Christian Missions 
in South Africa belongs to the United 
Brethren, or Moravians. A free passage having 
been granted him by the Dutch East India 
Company, George Schmidt sailed for the Cape 
in 1737. In September the same year, he 
took up his residence at Baviaans Kloof, now 
Genadendal. Here he built a small house, 
and made a garden. Many Hottentots dwelt 
in the neighbourhood, who at that time pos- 
sessed considerable flocks. They still spoke 
their own language. Very few understood 
Dutch, which is now the common speech of 
the coloured people of the Colony. Schmidt, 
however, was unable to learn their language, 
and could only address them through an inter- 
preter. At the end of 1740, he wrote as 
follows to his brethren in Europe : "The whole 
congregation consists of ten men, ten women, 
seven boys and five girls. Of these thirty-two, 
fifteen read the New Testament (in Dutch). " 
As yet none were baptized, but in 1^2 
Schmidt had the joy of receiving the first 
fruits of the Hottentots into the Christian 
Church. It was William; he received the 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 17 



name of Joshua. Afterwards lie admitted two 
other men, and then a woman, who received 
the name of Magdalena ; afterwards several 
more. In the Colony, however, there were 
many who looked on this work with ungracious 
eyes, and at last the governor forbade him to 
preach or dispense the sacrament. Schmidt 
found himself compelled, six years after his 
arrival, to leave his people and return to 
Europe. He writes, " On the 30th October 
1743, I gave a farewell address to my Hotten- 
tots on the words of Paul, when taking leave 
of the elders of Ephesus, Acts xx., and com- 
mended them in prayer to the great Shepherd 
of the sheep, that He might care for each of 
them according to his need, strengthen the 
weak, bind up the wounded, seek the lost, 
bring back the wandering. They all wept 
very much." 

When Schmidt returned to Amsterdam he 
spared no effort to obtain leave from the 
Company to resume his mission work free and 
untrammelled. But in vain. Nearly half a 
century passed without anything being done 
for the deserted flock. The Hottentots came 

B 



1 8 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

together from time to time under a great pear 
tree which Schmidt had planted in his garden, 
and Magdalena read to them out of a New 
Testament which the missionary had given her, 
Geo. Schmidt went to his rest without seeing 
the desire of his heart realized. At length, 
fout years later, leave was given that mission- 
aries might go again to South Africa. In 1792 
three arrived (Marsveld, Zinn, and Kuhnel.) 
Not much remained of what Schmidt had 
begun. In his garden there still stood the 
almond,. pear, and apricot trees which he had 
planted. Of his house only one piece of a 
wall could be seen. The Hottentots he had 
baptized were all dead, with the solitary excep- 
tion of Magdalena. She was now very old and 
nearly blind, but when she heard that brothers 
of Schmidt had come, she called out in her joy, 
" the Lord be praised." She showed them the 
New Testament in which she had used to read, 
and which she had carefully kept in a double 
wrapper of sheepskin. It was now yellow with 
many years of constant use. At the death of 
Lena the book was given to be kept at Gena- 
dendal; there it remains to this day in a little 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 1 9 



box of pear-wood, the wood of the tree beneath 
which the Hottentots used to sit and listen to 
what Lena used to read to them of the Word 
of Life. 

Thus was the mission resumed, and God 
has given the increase. Several thousands 
new dwell in the village. Many hundreds of 
children attend the schools. Many youths 
from various places, some from beyond the 
colony, are trained as teachers. Many good 
books are printed there, and. above all. many 
have there lived in the Lord and died happy 
in Him.* 

The Reformed ministers might,, with more 
propriety, be viewed merely as paid chaplains 
of the Company, than as ministers of a church 
deserving the name. 'SVe have mentioned 
that the Government insisted on electing half 
the members of Kirk Session, and of being 
represented in every church meeting by a 
" Political Commissioner/'" It is only fair to 
state that this interference in Church matters 
was not confined to the Dutch period. These 
abuses were continued for many years by the 
* Volksleesboek. Kaapstad, 1SGS. 



20 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

English Government. After the second occu- 
pation of the colony in 1806, the Govern- 
ment insisted that a " Political Commissioner " 
should be a member of the Consistory of Cape- 
town, notwithstanding the protest of that body 
that no law existed by which such interference 
could be justified. 

The following instructions were issued by 
the Government in 1811 : — 

" I. All letters addressed by the Governor 
to the Consistory, or written to the Consistory 
by his Excellency's order, are to be shown 
without delay to the Political Commissioner. 

" II. All letters written by the Consistory 
to his Excellency the Governor, or by the 
Consistory, or in the name of the Consistory, 
to the Secretaries of Government, are to be 
countersigned by the Political Commissioner." 

If the Commissioner refused his signature, 
the Church's letters were sent back or left- 
unanswered. Political Commissioners con- 
Itinued to sit in the Consistory till 1828, and 
in the Synod till 1842. 

No meeting of Presbytery existed. The 
Church at the Cape was viewed as an appen- 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 21 



dage of the Classis of Amsterdam. Instead of 
meetino- to discuss their local interests, the 
ministers had only the right of exchanging 
letters with the Church in Holland, communi- 
cating intelligence as to their affairs, and re- 
ceiving such advice as the brethren in Holland 
i. might give. In 1746, as soon as the number 
/ of congregations had reached five, the minis- 
ters attempted to establish a church organiza- 
tion, and an annual general meeting, called 
Classis, began to be held. This movement 
gave promise of much good ; but the Church 
in Holland became jealous of what it regarded 
as an unwarrantable assumption of authority, 
and after it had existed for twelve years, the 
' Government, at the instigation of the Classis 
of Amsterdam, caused its suppression. 

Being thus fettered, trammelled, subject to 
the Government in every way, it is not strange 
that the means of grace were not provided in 
proportion to the wants of the fast increasing 
and migratory population, and that nothing 
was done for the instruction of the heathen. 

That this handful of ministers should have 
overtaken the wants of twenty thousand, or, 



22 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 

including the slaves, forty-six thousand souls, 
and these scattered over a territory as large 
as Great Britain, is of course utterly absurd. 
Their superintendence of their parishes must 
have been, in many cases, a mere sham. We 
have been told of one minister, and he noted 
for his zeal, that he visited some parts of his 
extensive parish once in three years. There 
is an unwelcome legacy left to the present 
generation of ministers by the old Dutch 
Government, which professed to supply spiritual 
instructors for the people and did not, — the 
task of making up the lost ground of several 
past generations. 

With regard to the manner in which their 
spiritual duties were performed, we have a 
strong belief that the lives of some of them 
will not bear a close inspection. That some, 
however, were labourers not needing to be 
ashamed is manifest. Their works testify it. 
Some tracts of country bear witness, by the 
spiritual life in many families, descending to 
the present generation, that men of God have 
laboured there. We have conversed with 
some of the oldest inhabitants, whose memo- 



THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 23 



ries go back to the period before the English 
set foot in the land, and who remember their 
old pastors with such feeling and affection as 
plainly shows they were worthy to live in the 
hearts of their flocks. To mention names 
might be thought invidious. 

We have brought our sketch down to the 
end of the eighteenth century. A change was 
now, in the providence of God, to come over 
South Africa, which has given a new impulse 
to every kind of progress, and opened thk 
door very wide to the entrance of the Gospel 
among all the South African peoples. 

Even as to other matters, it seemed as if 
the Company's rule had lasted long enough. 
The people had fallen behind the age. Not 
a single printing press existed in the land. 
Much discontent was being felt at the despotic 
rule of the Company, and the commercial 
monopoly which it kept in its hands. The 
measures of the Governor and his Council 
were often arbitrary and severe. It not un- 
' frequently happened that for trivial offences 
persons were torn from the bosom of their 
families, and banished for a series of years to 



24 THE PERIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 



Batavia or Ceylon. The Company held also 
a monopoly of imported goods. Capetown 
was the only place of trade ; and the farmer 
had no other way of disposing of his produce 
than by selling it there to the Company. The 
iron work for his wagon, and what else he 
needed of imported goods, he must there also 
buy, — in both cases at prices advantageous to 
the Company. Another grievance not a little 
annoying was, that only one matrimonial court 
existed in the land. Parties intending to 
marry had to yoke their wagons and travel to 
Capetown, — a journey which, in many cases, 
going and returning, occupied from two to 
three months. A tale is told that, in the 
course of one of these journeys, the parties 
changed their minds, and amicably exchanged 
for other partners. 

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, 
the growing discontent broke out into open ' 
rebellion. Some adventurers from Europe, 
bringing with them the rage of the French 
Revolution, fanned the embers into a flame. 
In 1794, the people of Graaff-Reinet expelled 
their landdrost, and the following year the 



THE PEEIOD OF THE DUTCH RULE. 



25 



same was done at Swellendam. New land- 
drosts and commandants were chosen, and, 
in imitation of France, the colony was 
declared a Free Republic, and a National 
Assembly invited to govern it. The whole 
eastern district was in revolt. The Governor 
was entirely unable to quell the disorder. 
Within fifty miles or so of the capital his power 
was felt ; further inland no one heeded him. 
What would have been the issue had the 
malcontents gained the upper hand none can 
say, but at this juncture things took a new 
and unexpected turn. This little colony of the 
south became involved in the great struggle 
which at that time convulsed the nations of 
Europe, and " John, Company/' as the colon- 
ists used facetiously to call him, came to 
know that his hour was come. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE CAPE BECOMES AN ENGLISH COLONY. 

On the 11th of June 1295, the quiet citizens 
of Capetown were throw T n into a state of 
immense excitement and consternation, when a 
fleet of eight ships of war, bearing the English 
colours and having four thousand troops on 
board, entered False Bay. Sir George Keith 
Elphinstone, the commander, brought a letter 
signed by William, Prince of Orange, in which 
his loyal subjects in Southern Africa, were 
directed to admit the English forces, and hand 
over the colony as to a friendly power come to 
protect them. 

The government of Holland had been seized 
by the French. The Stad holder, his princess, 
and family, had fled to England ; and Britain, 
apprehensive that France would possess herself 
of the Cape, sent out this expedition to take 



THE CAPE AX ENGLISH COLONY. 



27 



and occupy the colony by peaceable means if 
possible, forcible if necessary. 

It appeared, however, that the revolutionary 
spirit divided the colony as well as the mother 
country. Commissary A. J. Sluysken, then in 
charge of the government, was not disposed to 
give it up, alleging that he was quite able to 
defend it. He had 500 soldiers and some 
artillery, and he called out the militia to assist 
in the defence. Those, however, who were 
discontented refused to lend any assistance until 
their grievances were redressed. Only a few 
volunteered, and Sluysken, finding that Cape- 
town was about to be assaulted, surrendered 
without fighting. 

The colony remained at first only eight 
years in English hands. By a stipulation at 
the peace of Amiens it was, in 1803, restored 
to the Batavian Republic, as the new organi- 
zation of the Netherlands was called. (The 
Dutch East India Company had been dissolved 
some years before.) These were eight years 
of external and internal trouble. The English 
government expended, it is said, fifteen 
millions sterling on the Cape during that 



28 THE CAPE AN ENGLISH COLONY. 

period, and yet did not succeed in bringing it 
to tranquillity. 

The malcontents of Graaff-Reinet and Swel- 
lendam were still less contented with the new 
regime than with the old. Many refused to 
take the oath of allegiance to George III., and 
to avoid doing so, some betook themselves 
to the neighbourhood of the Kafirs and other 
remote districts. For those who remained 
troops were needed to maintain order. In 
Graaff-Reinet they went the length of open 
resistance to the military. Meanwhile the 
Kafirs, who now for the first time made their 
appearance in the colony, encouraged, doubt- 
less, by the disturbed state of the country, 
began to commit terrible ravages on the bor- 
ders. They attacked the Graaff-Reinet dis- 
trict, burned the houses of the farmers, and 
drove off much cattle. A portion of the 81st 
regiment, which was sent against them, was 
surrounded and cut off. The Kafirs penetrated 
to within half-way to Capetown, marking their 
way with fire and blood. At length at Kay- 
man's River they were met and driven back by 
a united force of the soldiers and the colonists. 



THE CAPE AX ENGLISH COLONY. 



29 



The 21st February 1803 saw the Dutch 
colours again hoisted at Capetown. General 
J. W. Jajassen was sent out as governor, and 
Mr J. A. De Mist, as commissary-general, who 
should in that character receive the colony out 
of the hands of the English, and set its affairs 
in order. De Mist had drawn up a body of 
regulations, both civil and ecclesiastical, to the 
latter section of which we shall afterwards have 
occasion to refer. These two officers, however, 
were soon interrupted in the task to which they 
assiduously set themselves of re-organizing the 
colony. A change was impending. 

The same year the w T ar between England 
and France broke out afresh. As soon as the 
intelligence reached the Cape, Janssen, then 
on a journey of inspection in the interior, 
posted to the capital, and commenced arrange- 
ments for the defence. On Christmas day 
1805 an American ship brought the tidings 
that an English fleet with troops, under General 
Baird, had left Madeira for the East Indies. 
Apprehensions were thus raised that an imme- 
diate attack was impending. 

On the 4th of January 180G a formidable 



30 THE CAPE AN ENGLISH COLONY. 

fleet was signalled from the Lion's Rump, and 
the same evening it anchored, to the number 
of sixty-three vessels, at Bl^uwberg, on the 
side of Table Bay opposite to Cape Town. 
The troops were immediately disembarked, 
and on the shore near the landing-place they 
encountered the Dutch. J anssen's forces were 
somewhat less in number than those of the 
enemy, though better armed, but a bad spirit 
of insubordination was among them. The 
fight ended in victory for the English, about 
300 being killed or wounded on each side. 
Janssen seems to have been more impelled by 
a mere desire to save his honour than by any 
hope of keeping the colony. The following 
day Capetown surrendered without further 
bloodshed. 

Henry M^rtyn, of fragrant memory, was on 
board the fleet as chaplain, in the service of 
the (English) East India Company. His diary 
contains some interesting references to what he 
saw and did in the midst of those scenes. 
After the battle he went on shore and wandered 
over the field, ministering as he was able, 
to the wounded and dying. He writes, 



THE CAPE AN ENGLISH COLONY. 31 



"Jan. 10. About five the Commodore fired a 
gun, which was instantly answered by all the 
men-of-war. On looking out for the cause, we 
saw the British flag flying from the Dutch fort. 
Pleasing as the cessation of warfare was, I felt 
considerable pain at the enemy's being obliged 
to give up their fort, and town, and everything 
else, as a conquered people, to the will of their 
victor. ... I prayed that the capture 
of the Cape might be ordered to the advance- 
ment of Christ's kingdom ; and that England, 
while she sent the thunder of her arms to the 
distant regions of the globe, might not remain 
proud and ungodly at home, but might show her- 
self great indeed, by sending forth the ministers 
of her Church to diffuse the gospel of peace." 

Though Capetown had surrendered, however, 
Janssen was still unsubdued. After the action 
of Blaauwherg, he retired with his troops to 
Hottentot's Holland, now called Sir Lowry's 
Pass. There he established himself with the 
view of cutting off the communication of Cape- 
town with the interior. Sir David Baird fol- 
lowed the Dutch troops to Hottentot's Holland 
and offered them honourable terms of capitu- 



32 



THE CAPE AN ENGLISH COLONY. 



lation. They were not to be treated as 
prisoners of war, but to be conveyed to Holland 
at the English expense with their guns, arms, 
and baggage. All treasure, horses, and public 
property were to be given up. The terms were 
accepted, and the Colony ceded to the British. 

The political views of England in taking 
forcible possession of the Cape, and she had 
no other, do not concern us here. The sea 
voyage to India occupied then from three to 
four months. The overland route had not yet 
been projected. The Cape Colony seemed, 
therefore, an excellent halfway-house on the 
high way to her Indian possessions. For the 
same reasons for which Holland had desired 
it, Britain now coveted it. Here was a healthy 
country within easy reach of India, where troops 
could be kept in readiness for any emergency, 
and where Indian officers could enjoy their 
holiday more easily than by going home. 
Time has reversed these calculations, for the 
rail and the telegraph have brought India 
practically nearer to England herself than the 
Cape is. But the Lord has overruled the 
counsels of men to the good of His kingdom. 

Neither is there any need to boast our 



THE CAPE AN ENGLISH COLONY. 33 

superiority to the former rulers. The faults of 
the Company were those of the time. Nor has 
England, either in the acts of her Government, 
or the conduct of her sons, been free from 
grounds of serious blame. But we can trace 
with thankfulness the many beneficent changes 
which the Lord has wrought. Comparative 
stagnation has given place to progress. The 
slave population has been made free. A vast 
stimulus has been given to civilization and 
moral advancement among the varied peoples 
of South Africa. Religious intolerance has 

o 

made way not only for the fullest toleration, 
but for enlightened and generous encourage- 
ment to the spread of the Gospel. 

And all British Christians must feel that 
the thousands of South Africans, who then, 
without or against their will, became our 
fellow subjects, possess a strong claim upon our 
sympathies : that on us lies the duty to make 
up to them, in so far as we may, those serious 
evils, the undermining of their nationality, the 
suppression of their language, with accompany- 
ing disadvantages, which must unavoidably in 

course of time follow the conquest. 

c 



CHAPTER III. 

GROWTH OF THE CHUKCH, 1806-1868. 

Up to the point which our sketch has reached, 
it could scarcely be said with correctness that 
a Dutch Reformed church existed at the Cape 
at all. There were seven isolated congrega- 
tions receiving emoluments from the Govern- 
ment, but fettered, trammelled, and deprived 
of all freedom of action. We have now to 
relate the steps by which these have expanded 
into a Synod, with its own constitution and 
laws, substantially free, though with one 
remaining rag of state control, and manifesting 
considerable vitality and vigour. 

At the cession of the colony by the Dutch 
to the English Government, the eighth article 
of the Deed of Capitulation secured the 
religious privileges of the inhabitants : — 

" The burgers and inhabitants shall preserve 
all their rights and privileges, which they 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



35 



have enjoyed hitherto, public worship, as at 
present in use, shall also be maintained without 
alteration." 

The English Government accordingly con- 
tinued to support the Dutch Reformed Con- 
gregations by providing the ministers' salaries. 
The Church was transferred from the protection 
of the Dutch to that of the English Government, 
and the relation to the civil power which had 
previously existed — the state of spiritual 
bondage — remained unaltered. 

New congregations were formed from time 
to time, over which the state appointed 
ministers. In some cases the appointments 
were against the will of congregations. Men 
might be placed without any minute inquiry 
as to whether they held the status of ministers 
at all. 

The Church's relation to the civil power 
had been defined in the regulations of Com- 
missioner-General De Mist, already named. 
One of these articles of " Church Order " was 
the following : — ■ 

"No. 46. An experiment is to be made 
yrhether it be possible and useful, every second 



36 GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



year, to hold a General Church. Assembly, 
consisting of, etc., etc, 

"At such meeting there shall be present 
two political Commissioners nominated by the 
Governor, to represent the government of the 
colony. 

" The Political Commissioners have the 
right to suspend the decision on any point, 
until they have ascertained the Governor s 
wish." 

These conditions not having an attractive 
look, more than twenty years passed before the 
right of meeting in Synod was turned to any 
account. At length in 1824, the number of 
congregations having meantime risen to 
thirteen, it was thought that the inaction had 
lasted long enough, and the permission of the 
Government having been asked, a Synod or 
General Assembly was held. The Govern- 
ment appointed two Political Commissioners 
to attend it. All its decisions were submitted 
to the Governor of the Colony for approval 
and publication. 

In the same way Synodical Meetings were 
held every fifth year till 1.&42. No resolutions 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



37 



could be passed without the approval of the 
Political Commissioners, nor could they be 
brought into force without the consent of the 
executive. 

At the Synodical Meeting of 1842 party 
feeling ran high, and one of the Political Com- 
missioners, a member of the Church, availed 
himself of his official position to strengthen 
the party with which he personally sympathized 
(the minority), and sought to use his influence 
to prevent the official approval of its proceed- 
ings by the Government. Representations on 
the subject were made to the Government, 
stating that its authority was being used in 
the Church, in matters having no reference to 
civil interests. 

The correspondence resulted in the acknow- 
ledgment on the part of the Governor, Sir George 
Napier, of the inconveniences arising from the 
existing state of things. A letter from the 
Colonial Secretary, Colonel Bjell, under date 
of 17th January 1840, giving expression to 
these views, concludes with the following 
paragraph : — f< The Governor is most anxious 
to free the Church from the trammels of 



38 GEOWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



secular interference in all spiritual or purely- 
ecclesiastical matters, and of substituting in 
all other matters, of which she cannot dispose 
by her sole authority, that of the highest civil 
tribunal, for the authority which he conceives 
to have been so undesirably continued in the 
Governor, — the extinction of whose appellate 
jurisdiction in civil and criminal procedure 
ought, in his opinion, to have been followed 
up by the extinction of that anomalous rela- 
tion in which he still appears to be placed by 
the ancient regulations of a Church whose 
principles repudiate all interference in matters 
concerning its own internal ecclesiastical con- 
cerns/' 

In consequence, it was thought desirable 
that a " Church Ordinance " should be passed, 
recognising the Church's right to frame and 
carry out her own regulations, without the 
necessity of submitting everything to the 
Government for its sanction. The old regu- 
lations of De Mist (25th July 1804) were to 
be repealed, the existing Church laws and 
regulations to be ratified once for all, and the 
right of the Synod acknowledged to alter those 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



39 



laws in future as it might see fit, provided no 
such alteration should touch on certain fun- 
damental principles affirmed in the Ordinance 
itself.* 

This Ordinance, with a schedule annexed 
containing the Church Laws, was passed by 
the Legislative Council of the colony in 1843, 
and subsequently received her Majesty's sanc- 
tion. The struggle which had led to its 
adoption, and the sentiments expressed by the 
Governor in proposing it, led the church to 
look upon it as the charter of her rights. It- 
was valued all the more because it acknow- 
ledged so distinctly, in Section Nine, the 
spiritual jurisdiction of the church, In sec- 
tion eight the church was declared to have 
no power over the person or property of its 
own members, except such as had been yielded 
by voluntary consent ; and section nine en- 
acted that no person composing or even giving 
evidence before a competent judicatory could 
be liable to any action at law except in cases 
where malice could be shown. The church 
appeared thus to be protected in the exercise 
* See page 149. 



40 G&OWTH OF THE CHUKCH. 



of her spiritual functions. The thought seems 
never to have dawned on the mind of any that 
she would still be liable to have her proceedings 
brought into review before the Civil Courts. 

Under the Ordinance, everything worked 
smoothly for a time. With the Synod of 
1862, the aspect of things changed, however. 
Its proceedings gave rise to no less than fgur 
actions in the Supreme Court against the 
Church. Two of these, cases of discipline, 
are still undecided, and have brought the 
Synod into direct collision with the Civil 
Courts, and thrown the church into great 
internal disorder. A statement of these two 
cases will be found in the next chapter. 

The seven congregations existing in 1800 
have gradually multiplied to seventy-one, the 
ministers to sixty-one, and there is still room 
for considerable expansion by the subdivision 
of the larger charges. These are exclusive of 
the churches beyond the colonial limits, of 
which we shall afterwards speak. 

Each congregation has a consistory, com- 
posed of the minister, where there is one, two 
(or more) elders, and four (or more) deacons. 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH, 41 



The elders and deacons are not appointed for 
life, but for two years, which may be increased 
to four. They go out in rotation, and it is 
expected that one or more new members come 
into office every year. 

The Church is divided into seven Presby- 
teries, each congregation being represented by 
a minister and one member of consistory. 
The quinquennial Synod, or General Assembly, 
is composed of a minister and elder from each 
congregation. During the interval between 
the meetings of synod, a synodical commission, 
consisting of eleven members, appointed by 
the synod, acts on its behalf. 

As soon as the synod began to be held, a 
movement was begun to supply the pressing 
need of a theological hall, for the training of 
a native ministry. In early times the minis- 
ters were necessarily sent out from Holland. 
By degrees the colony itself began to furnish 
a supply, who were educated at the universi- 
ties of Holland, or of Scotland. A consider- 
able number of Scotch ministers have also 
been invited, at various times, to join its 
service. The movement for a theological hall 



42 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



has proved quite successful. In 1859 the 
seminary was opened. It has two professors, 
and twenty students, and some of its alumni 
are already rilling pulpits in the colony. 

Home and foreign mission work has also 
been begun. There are ten mission stations 
within the colony, and two beyond its bounds, 
among the natives of the Transvaal Republic. 
In 1862 this latter mission was commenced, 
by the Rev. Alexander M'Kidd, previously of 
the Free Church of Scotland, and the Rev. 
Henri Gonin, previously of Geneva. Mr 
M'Kidd went to a native tribe near Zoutpans- 
berg, the remotest outpost of white inhabitants 
in South Africa, and laboured with singular 
devotedness and much effect for about three 
years, when first his wife and then himself 
were struck down with fever. His work has 
been taken up by the Rev. S. Hofmeyr, and 
is progressing. Mr Gonin has formed a 
mission among the Kafirs, near the village of 
Rustenburg, where he still labours with 
enthusiastic devotedness. He has already 
had the satisfaction of receiving ten or more 
natives into the christian church, by bap- 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



43 



tism, and is building up a native congre- 
gation. 

Grants from the Colonial Treasury in aid 
of ministers' salaries, are received by all the 
earlier formed congregations. The amount 
received in 1867 was £8632, 10s., divided 
among forty-seven congregations. But since 
the establishment of a Colonial Parliament in 
1851, no new grants have been given; and 
the current of public opinion in the colony 
puts it beyond any doubt, that within a few 
years all grants for religious purposes shall be 
discontinued. 

In the churches receiving government grants 
the minister is elected and called by the con- 
sistory (in a combined meeting of all the acting 
and the retired members). But before the 
money can be paid the minister must be 
" appointed " by the governor. However, the 
governor has in no case rejected the man 
chosen by the consistory. In the other con- 
gregations the governor only gives his approval. 
The present governor has, indeed, indicated an 
unwillingness to have anything to do with the 
matter, alleging very reasonably that where 



44 GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



the government does not pay any money it 
should take no part in the appointment. At 
the expressed desire of the church, however, a 
formal approval is generally given, and a state- 
ment appears in the Gazette that " His 
excellency has been pleased to approve of the 
Rev.," &c. 

The recognised language of the church is 
Dutch ; but ever since the colony passed into 
English hands, the Dutch language has been 
losing ground. English is the language of the 
government, of trade, and, for the most part, 
of education. A generation is growing up, in 
the towns at least, to whom Dutch is strange. 
The need of divine service in English is thus 
becoming daily more pressing. Many members 
have already been lost to the church for the 
want of it. This state of things causes much 
inconvenience, and involves extra labour for 
the time. The unanimity of congregations is 
broken. Bible classes for the young have to 
be carried on in duplicate. Since 1862 a 
regular English service has been held in 
Capetown, in addition to the Dutch. The 
same practice is observed in several other 
congregations. 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



45 



Much needed to be done during these sixty 
years to advance education, and a good deal 
has been done. The educational system in the 
Cape colony is based on a plan recommended 
by Sir John Herschel in 1841. Schools, 
receiving a certain government allowance, are 
established in all the towns and villages, the 
grant of course differing according to the im- 
portance of the school. The schools are classed 
as denominational and national. Several 
schools of a superior rank have been estab- 
lished within the last few years, where as good 
an education can be obtained as in most parts 
of Britain. A public Board of Examiners 
was appointed in 1858, who grant certificates 
in the different branches of art and science. 
The various junior members of the public ser- 
vice have, for some years back, been selected 
from candidates who have passed a com- 
petitive examination. Still, many of the 
outlying farmers dwell so far apart from vil- 
lages that public schools scarcely meet their 
•case. 

The Government Blue Book for 1867 fur- 
nishes the following statistics of the denomina- 



46 



GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 



tional schools in connection with the Dutch 
Reformed Church in the Cape colony :- — 



Pupils in attendance, . . . 1253 
Total amount of fees, £1312 14 11 



Some of the schools in this class seem to be 
Mission Schools for the coloured children. 
Many of the other schools classed as national, 
are virtually under control of the Dutch 
Reformed Church. 

While the church in the Cape colony has 
thus been progressing during the past sixty 
years, several offshoots have sprung up beyond 
the colonial limit, which promise to become in 
time as large and influential as the mother 
church. These we shall reserve for a separate 
chapter. 



Number of schools, 



26 



Government grants, 



1017 10 0 



CHAPTER IV. 

COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COUETS. 
THE CASE OF DARLING * 

Since the days of the Synod of Dort, it had 
been customary in the Church of Holland, at 
one of the Sabbath services, to take a portion 
of the Heidelberg Catechism, one of its stand- 
ards, for the subject of discourse from the 
pulpit. The Catechism is divided into fifty- 
two portions, one appropriated to each Sabbath 
of the year. The custom was to take some 
portion of the word of God bearing on the 
subject as text, and then, in connection with 

* In describing this case and the following, we have to 
acknowledge much indebtedness to ' * A Statement of the 
Case between the Rev. T. F. Burgers and the Synodical 
Commission of the Dutch Reformed Church." Capetown, 
N. H. Marais, 1866. 



48 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



that, to expound the teaching of the Catechism. 
With the reign of neology in Holland, it 
became customary simply to read the question 
and answer, and then in preaching to take no 
further notice of it, and latterly even openly 
to combat the doctrines it contained. 

The Rationalistic teaching of Holland has, 
during recent years, found its way to South 
Africa, through means of students from the 
Cape studying at her universities, and in 
other ways. In consequence of this, a pro- 
posal came under discussion in the Synod of 
1862, that "the Synod declare that the 
preaching on the Catechism is to be under- 
stood as an exposition of the questions and 
answers, and a defence of the same on the 
ground of the Word of God." 

In the course of the discussion the minister 
of Darling, Mr. Kotze, opposed the motion, 
denied the principle that the minister was 
bound by the doctrines of the Catechism, and 
referred for illustration to the 60th question 
of the Catechism. He said " that the words 
in the first part of the answer, 6 and am still 
inclined to all evil/ contains language which 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 49 

would not be true in the mouth of a heathen, 
much less in that of a Christian. Were he to 
preach on Answer 60, wherever it might "be, 
he would do just like that minister in Holland, 
of whom the minister of Pietermaritzburg had 
spoken, and say, ' I consider that the Catechism 
is wrong here.' " 

The words immediately attracted attention, 
and were recorded by the scriba in the minutes. 
It was felt that, while the vital question of 
maintaining purity of doctrine was under 
consideration, the tacit admission of the claim, 
so broadly asserted by a clergyman, to impugn 
the teaching of the standards of the Church, 
would be a virtual denial of the obligation of 
her creeds. 

A motion was accordingly made, and carried 
by a large majority, that Mr. Kotze be called 
upon to retract his offensive statement, two 
days' interval being allowed him for delibera- 
tion. At the appointed time the answer was 
given, " that he had no intention to retract a 
single expression used by him ; he would 
express what he had said still more strongly, 
if possible, than he had done." He added, 



50 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COUKTS. 

" that he was open to conviction if he was in 
error." 

Several attempts were now made to settle 
the matter without having recourse to extreme 
measures. The Synod endeavoured to induce 
Mr. Kotze to meet a committee of brotherly 
conference, — or make a satisfactory explanation 
of his words, — or subscribe such an explanation 
of the words of the Catechism as the Synod 
thought might reasonably be expected of him. 
All these attempts proved fruitless, and finally 
the Synod pronounced upon him sentence of 
suspension, leaving it further to the Synodical 
Commission, if no written retractation of the 
offensive words should be sent in previous to 
its next ensuing meeting, to depose him from 
the ministry. 

Before the lapse of many days, a summons 
was served on the moderator to appear before 
the Supreme Court, and show cause why the 
sentence of the Synod should not be pro- 
nounced null and void. 

In the meantime (April 1864), the Synod- 
ical Commission had met, and no retracta- 
tion having been sent in, Mr. Kotze was 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 51 



declared to be deposed from the office of the 
ministry. 

On the 2 3d August 1864, the trial of the 
case came on before the Chief Justice Bell, 
and Justices Cloete and Watermeyer. The 
plaintiffs declaration contained the following 
grounds for having the sentence of the Synod 
reversed, annulled, and declared void : 

1. That the Synod was not a competent 
court. He ought to have been tried by his 
Presbytery. 

2. That in dealing with the case, the Synod 
did not adhere to its own rules and regula- 
tions, or to the principles of justice, inasmuch 
as no libel was served. 

3. That, apart from the irregularity in 
matter of form, the sentence was unjust and 
illegal, inasmuch as the words spoken were 
such as the plaintiff was fully warranted in 
using. 

The defence set forth, that as to the third 
ground of complaint (which referred to the 
• merits of the case), the Church took exception 
to the competency of the Court to take up 
the point. As to the two remaining grounds, 



52 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS, 



(and in the event of the Court overruling the 
fore-mentioned exception, for a plea to the 
whole), defendant " denied every allegation in 
fact and conclusion in law in plaintiff's 
declaration, and joined issue thereon." 

The relation of the Church to the Civil 
Court had been, up to this time, little con- 
sidered, and the Church seemed to be scarcely 
aware of the importance of the question she 
was now brought to face. 

The arguments in behalf of the plaintiff 
were substantially as follows : — Under the 
first head (we give this so fully because the 
decision in the Burgers case mainly rested 
upon it), it was pointed out that, from 1824 
to 1843, matters of discipline concerning 
ministers were dealt with by the Synod in 
the first instance, with the right of appeal 
to the Governor. In accordance with the 
spirit of the Church Ordinance of 1843, that 
appeal was done away with ; and in the 
Church Laws, as published with the Ordi- 
nance, there was thus only one instance for 
the trial of ministers. This was felt to be 
undesirable; and accordingly, in 1847, a 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 53 



resolution was passed, " that charges against 
ministers should, in future, in the first in- 
stance, be conducted before the Presbytery ; 
and, in the second instance, before the Synod 
itself:" and the regulations of 1843 were 
modified accordingly. On this it was pleaded 
that it was not competent for the Synod to 
try the case : it ought to have been sent 
down to the Presbytery. 

Under the second head, it was argued for 
the plaintiff, " that the Synod did not go pro- 
perly to work as a judicial tribunal should. 
No act of accusation was given which could 
stand in the place of a Bill of Indictment. 
All along, the plaintiff had asked for an act 
of accusation, but that was never given him." 

And under the third head, it was maintained 
that, by " the sixth section of the Ordinance, 
though their Lordships could not be asked to 
say whether any given theological dogma was 
true or false, their Lordships had power to 
determine whether the words used by Mr. 
Kotze did impugn any given theological 
dogma." 

For the defence, it was maintained under 



5 4 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



the first head that, when the change was 
made, in order to give ministers a trial before 
the Presbytery in the first instance, the Synod 
'had by no means entirely denuded itself of 
all power. By Art. 187, it had expressly 
declared its right of dealing with members of 
the Synod as such, and Art. 188 regulated, 
the proceedings in case of a complaint against 
a minister brought by a private member before 
the Synod in the first instance. And this 
power of dealing with such cases had been 
further expressly reserved by Art. 7. 

Under the second head, it was argued for 
the defence, that in all Presbyterian churches, 
summary proceedings are in certain cases 
allowed, — that there was no regulation de- 
claring a libel indispensable, — that a libel 
was needless, as the offence did not require 
to be proved, the words having been used in 
the presence of the Synod, — that the accused 
had never once asked for an indictment or 
accusation, — that he and the whole Synod 
knew distinctly what the principle was he 
was contending for, as the words combated by 
him had been the battle-ground between the 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 55 



Reformed Church and the Rem onstrants at the 
Synod of Dort, — that the proposed sentence 
(stating the offence for which he was to be 
censured, was upon the table, and on which 
he had opportunity of speaking) was to all 
intents and purposes a libel, and that sub- 
stantial justice had thus been rendered. 

Under the third head, it was argued that 
both the spirit and the letter of the Ordinance 
forbade the Court to entertain the question, 
whether the words spoken were heretical or 
not. This was a question for the Synod to 
decide. The judgments of the Lord Chan- 
cellor in the barren case, and of the Privy 
Council in the Long case, were appealed to, 
to prove that it was only on the forms as 
fixed by the contracting parties, and not on the 
merits, that the Court had liberty to enter. 

On the 2d of September judgment was 
given. Mr. Justice Bell considered the first 
ground of action invalid, and that the expres- 
sion, " members of Synod as such," made 
the case one for the Synod, and not for the 
Presbytery. Under the second head he held 
hat, " inasmuch as no act of accusation or 



56 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



libel was served upon the plaintiff, and inas- 
much as he has not had a trial in the sense 
in which that term is understood, by the Civil 
Court at least, the plaintiff was entitled to 
have the sentence of the Synod set aside and 
declared to be invalid/' / Under the third 
head no final decision was given, but it was 
held " that to demand a retractation of the 
words used by the plaintiff was to attempt to 
deprive him of his freedom of debate." 

Mr. Justice Cloete held that the defence 
had failed both upon the first and second 
grounds, and that the exception under the 
third head was incompetent. Mr. Justice 
Waterjneyer, though not present, signified his 
general agreement with Mr. Justice Bell. 
Judgment was accordingly given for the plain- 
tiff with costs.* 

That the Church felt herself aggrieved by 
this decision need scarcely be said. Apart 
from other considerations, here was a decision 
which did not merely give compensation for 
civil loss sustained, but aimed at setting aside 
a spiritual sentence. 

* " Ju^jpaent in the Case of the Rev. J. J. Kotze," &c 
&e. Juta, Wale Street, Capetown. 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 57 

As was to have been expected, the judg- 
ment of the court led to new complica- 
tions. 

On the 12th of October 1864, the Presby- 
tery of Tulbagh, to which the congregation of 
Darling belonged, held its first meeting subse- 
quent to the decision of the Supreme Court 
in the case of the minister of Darling. Mr. 
Kotze was present, and claimed a seat in virtue 
of the judgment by which the sentence of the 
Synod had been declared null and void. By 
a majority of eleven to ten, the Presbytery 
passed the following resolution : u As it has 
not appeared from the official organ of the 
Church that Mr. Kotze has been rein- 
stated in his office of minister in the Dutch 
Reformed Church, the meeting declares that 
it cannot allow him to take a seat in its 
midst," 

In the course of the next year, the mem- 
bers of the Presbytery who had voted in the 
majority were summoned before the Supreme 
Court to show cause " why he should not be 
declared to have been entitled to a seat, and 
why they should not be interdicted from again 



58 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



questioning his right, or molesting him at any 
future meeting of Presbytery.'' 

On the 17th August the Court was accor- 
dingly moved on notice to the above effect, 
and as none of the members summoned had 
appeared, the case was proceeded with in their 
absence. In the course of the application it 
appeared that no authenticated c&>py of the 
judgment had been served on the Presbytery, 
and on this ground the interdict applied for 
could not be granted. The Court felt no 
hesitation, however, in giving a dictum, to 
the effect that he was legall^entitled to a 
seat. 

Justice Cloete said, " there could be no 
possible doubt in the mind of any sane man 
that the Court was bound to uphold the 
judgment it had pronounced, declaring the 
minister of Darling thereby eo ipso clothed 
I with all the rights and privileges of his 
position as a minister." Mr. K. had only 
failed in that he " did not lay before the 
Presbytery what might be called his new 
credentials, namely, the judgment of this 
Court, reinstating him in all his functions as 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 59 



minister of Darling/' Judge Watermeyer 
concurred. 

On the 18th of October 1865, the Pres- 
bytery of Tulbagh met again. Mr. K. appeared 
with his " new credentials/' supported also by 
the dictum of the Court. By a majority of 
ten to seven, it was again, as on a former 
occasion, resolved to refuse Mr. K. a seat. 
Mr. Kotze declared that he would not leave 
the meeting, unless compelled to do so by 
force. The Presbytery thereupon, after dis- 
cussion, resolved (Mr. Kotze, however, not 
being allowed to vote), to adjourn, until advice 
could be received from the Synod as to their 
i further conduct. In this state the matter 
still remains, Jan. 1869. 

THE CASE OF HANOVER 

I. THE CASE IN THE CHURCH COURTS. 

When the Synod of 1862 met, the scriba 
laid on the table, in addition to the classified 
list of agenda, a number of other documents. 
A Committee of Order reported upon these, 



60 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



and suggested that one of them, containing a 
complaint against the Rev. T. F. Burgers of 
Hanover, be referred to the Judicial Committee. 
The complaint stated that in conversation on 
a Sabbath afternoon, he had, in presence of 
some six persons, denied the personality of the 
devil, the sinlessness of Christ, the resurrection 
of the body, and the continued personal exis- 
tence of the human soul after death. 

The Judicial Committee (which acts only 
during the sitting of the Synod, examines on 
all complaints, and proposes a decision to the 
Synod) reported, that the defendant entirely 
denied the charge 'brought against him, and 
that the plaintiff had not his witnesses at hand, 
as he had been led to understand that his 
complaint, having been received too late for 
the published agenda, could not be entertained. 
The Synod resolved to appoint a special com- 
mission from among its members to inquire in 
loco, and to report to the Presbytery of Graaff- 
Reinet. The following day this resolution was 
altered, and instead of the Presbytery disposing 
of the case, the Synodicai Commission was 
ordered to act on the report that should 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 61 



be given in b} 7 the Special Commission of 
Inquiry. This was on the 11th November 
1862. Before the members had been named 
to act on this Commission the Synod adjourned, 
owing to its constitution being questioned, and 
afterwards adjudged to be illegal. 

The Synod met again in October 1863; and 
Mr Burgers, when the Commission of Inquiry 
was about to be appointed, moved that " the 
; Synod should at once enter on the considera- 
tion of the case." As no motion had been 
given to this effect, and the witnesses were not 
present, this was refused. Against this decision 
the minister of Hanover protested. 

On the 8th and following days of February 
1864, the Commission of Inquiry met at 
Handover, examined witnesses, and transmitted 
the report of their proceedings to the Synodical 
Commission. At this meeting Mr Burgers 
appeared under protest. 

The Synodical Commission met in April 
1864, and resolved that as there were state- 
ments in the defence requiring elucidation, 
they would require such elucidation from Mr 
Burgers, and that they would therefore adjourn 
till the 13th of July. 



62 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



At that adjourned meeting a reply was read 
refusing the required explanation. The Com- 
mission then proceeded to adjudge on the 
matter, found the first two counts proven, and 
susporided Mr Burgers from the ministry till 
their next meeting in April 1865. 

At the appointed time the Commission met 
again, and no acknowledgment of guilt having 
been received, Mr Burgers was declared sus- 
pended from the ministry until the next 
meeting of Synod in 1867. 

II. THE CASE BEFORE THE CIVIL COURT OF 
THE COLONY. 

The Rev. Andrew Murray, jun., had been 
summoned as Moderator of the Synod to show 
cause why the sentence of the Synodical Com- 
mission should not be reversed. Some litigation 
took place to decide who was the proper 
defendant in the case, and ultimately the 
Synodical Commission was summoned. 

On the 26th of May 1865 the trial of the 
case came on before the Suprerr^e Court of the 
Cape of Good Hope The plaintiff complained 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. G3 

that " his right to occupy the pulpit of his 
congregation, and to continue to receive the 
emoluments in stipend of said congregation, 
are put in jeopardy, and that he has by means 
of the same been excluded from the Presby- 
tery of Graaff-Reinet, of which he is a member, 
from its meetings, and that he is, by means of 
the same, in other respects much injured and 
aggrieved." Six grounds were alleged for 
having the sentence of the Commission reversed. 
The only ope handled in Court, and upon which 
the case was decided, was : — 

" Because the Presbytery of Graaff-Reinet 
was the only Court competent to try the 
plaintiff, in the first instance, for any charge 
against his doctrine." 

The Commission pleaded in defence that 
there were two grounds of exception against 
the competency of the Court to try the case, 
namely, — 

1. Generally, that the Dutch Reformed 
Church was a Christian Church, having within 
. itself full spiritual authority over its mem- 
bers. 

And 2. That by the 9th section of the 



64 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



" Church Ordinance/' the church was, in express 
words, protected in the exercise of her spiritual 
authority. 

Under the first head, — the independent 
spiritua 1 jurisdiction claimed by the church, — 
it was argued that this was one of the essential 
principles of Presbyterianism. Reference was 
made to the evidence furnished by the history 
of the Church of Scotland, — to the claim of 
spiritual independence persistently made by the 
Church, and not denied on the part of the Civil 
Powers, from the Deed of Settlement in 1592, 
down to the opinions of the Scottish Judges 
subsequent to the Disruption of 1843. 

It was argued that the legal principle "that 
the Sovereign is the fountain of all authority," 
had thus received within the British Empire a 
most important limitation ; and that this 
exception in matters spiritual to the absolute 
supremacy of the Crown, might much more 
justly be claimed by non-established than by 
Established Churches. And it was further 
maintained that even were there not this evi- 
dence of history in regard to the recognition of 
this liberty, the principles of toleration ought 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



65 



to be sufficient ground on which the church's 
claim of an independent jurisdiction derived 
frorn Christ should be acknowledged, 
/under the second exception it was main- 2, . 
tained that the Eoman Dutch Law prevailing 
in the colony was in favour of the claim. It 
was proved from the history of the Church in 
Holland, that however much influence had at 
times been claimed by the State in its legisla- 
tive and executive capacities, it had never been 
dreamt that the procedure of Church Courts 
should be brought in review before the ordi- 
nary civil tribunals. The evidence of all the 
authorities in Dutch ecclesiastical law was 
quoted in support of this. 

Passing to the Church Ordinance it was ,* 
argued that not only the general expression of 
section 3, "it is expedient that the Dutch 
Reformed Church in South Africa should be 
invested with the power of regulating its own 
internal affairs/' and the "General Assembly or y 
Synod of said church is the natural and proper 
ecclesiastical authority by which rules and 
regulations for the government of the said 
church, in its own internal affairs, may right- 

E 



66 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



fully be made/' but especially sections 8 and 
J(J ^supported the claims of the Church. Section 
/8 declared that over the person and property, 
even of its members, the Church should have 
no power except such as had been surrendered 
by voluntary agreement, and that thus ques- 
tions arising as to these would have to be dealt 
with according to the principles applicable to 
ordinary voluntary associations ; a principle 
that had always been acknowledged by the 
churches of Holland and Scotland in former, as 
well as in more recent controversies. Section- 
<y 9, on the other hand, gave unlimited spiritual 
jurisdiction as long as the Church did not seek 
violently to touch body or goods, protecting the 
members of Church Courts from actions, except 
in the single case where malice could be 
alleged. It was pointed out how the Ordinance 
declared the Church Courts to be judicatories, 
and how they thus, as acknowledged by the 
State, were freed from liability to actions, 
especially as malice could not be alleged against 
a tribunal, but only against its individual 
members. 

On these grounds it was pleaded : "that 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. G7 



inasmuch as the sentence complained of was 
a spiritual sentence, passed in consequence of 
certain spiritual offences, it was not competent 
for the plaintiff to seek to set it aside in that 
court." 

The answer of the counsel for the plaintiff 
consisted of a critique on the annexure to the 
defendant's plea, of which the substance was, 
to use his own words, " Established Churches 
are created by the State, and it appears to me 
that, with regard to non-established Churches, 
it is quite vain and impossible to say that 
they are independent of the State. They 
exist by permission of the State, or, if you 
please, by the authority of the State, recogniz- 
ing the action of voluntary associations. To 
say that these churches in any one degree 
differ from other institutions, merely because 
they point to higher and more spiritual objects, 
appears to me unsound. All I am contending 
for is the existence of a Supreme power in the 
State, represented by the courts of law, and 
the impossibility of the existence, in the same 
society, of more than one supreme power. I 
simply deny that the Dutch Reformed Church, 



68 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



or any Church in this colony, can raise itself 
or its sentences out of the province of the law. 
It is by the State that the Church and Church 
judicatories exist, and they have no authority, 
save that which the recognition of the State 
bestows." 

The three Justices were unanimous in their 
verdict. They agreed to disallow the excep- 
tions of the defendants, and to try the case on 
its merits. They maintained that the Ordi- 
nance of 1843 must be viewed as a compact 
or agreement between the Church and its 
ministers ; that the court had full right to try 
the case in which a member asserted that the 
Church had not observed its own rules ; and 
that in doing so, the court was not interfering 
in the least with the independent jurisdiction 
of the Church. They disallowed the first 
exception, which took its ground on the in- 
herent rights of a Christian Church and the 
principles of toleration. The second exception, 
which alleged that the action was barred by 
the 9 th section of the Ordinance they held to 
be equally untenable. 

The exceptions of the defendants being 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 69 



disallowed, the Court proceeded to try the 
case on its merits. It was resolved to hear 
plaintiff first on the third point of his declara- 
tion, " because the Presbytery of Graaff-Reinet 
was the only court competent to try the said 
plaintiff, in the first instance, for any charge 
against his doctrine, and because, therefore, 
the proceedings were wholly irregular and 
illegal" 

The plaintiff's counsel then simply referred 
to the decision in the Kotze . case as having 
virtually settled the matter. 

In answer, it was argued that even if there 
were an error, it was a bona fide erj;or. Neither 
the majority, nor the minority voting with Mr 
Burgers, nor even Mr Burgers himself, as 
appeared from the minutes, had objected to its 
being dealt with by the Synod, on the ground 
of the incompetency of that body. The plain- 
tiff had, by his consent given at the various 
steps, waived his right to come forward with 
this objection. And further, that this case came 
•distinctly within Art. 7 of the Church Laws, 
in which it was stated that " no cases might 
be brought before the higher courts which ought 



70 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



first to have been decided in inferior ones, 
I unless in the meanwhile no inferior court 
had been held, and the nature of the case 
required a speedier settlement!' 

The Justices were unanimous in finding a 
verdict for the plaintiff. They maintained 
that a grave infoijnality had been committed, 
the Synodical Commission assuming to itself a 
jurisdiction which the church laws gave only 
to the Presbytery. The sentence of the Synod 
was declared " null and void, the plaintiff to 
have his costs." 

On the announcement of this judgment, the 
synodical commission resolved to bring the 
case by appeal before the Privy Council. The 
feeling had been gaining ground in the Church 
that if the exposition of the law by the Judges 
of the Supreme Court was the correct one, it 
would be the duty of its courts to refuse 
obedience. To justify such refusal of submis- 
sion, every effort must first be made to ascertain 
what the law of England on the subject really 
was. 




III. THE CASE BEFOEE THE PEIYY COUNCIL. 

The case came by appeal before Her 
Majesty's Privy Council on the 27th and 30th 
7 . May 1865^ *t*> <^ s - 

On behalf of the Church it was contended 
that, according to the true construction of the 
ordinance, the Synod had jurisdiction to 
pronounce the sentence of the 16th July 
1864, in the first instance, and without any 
other previous hearing before the Presbytery 
of Graaff-Reinet. /'And again, that the sen- 
tence complained of being a spiritual sentence, 
it was not liable to be set aside by a civil 
court. Reference was here made to the 
Cardross case and others. It was also con- 
tended that the respondent had waived his 
right of objection. 

On the other side, it was argued that the 
church had no right to violate its own laws, 
and that the ordinance only gave the church 
immunity in passing spiritual sentences or 
censures, which, it was said, was very different 



* Moore's Privy Council Reports, vol. iv., 250-270. 



72 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



from the right to interfere with the status and 
the legal right of parties : that the Presbytery 
of GraafF-Reinet was the only competent court 
to try the case in the first instance. 

The sentence was pronounced by Lord 
Westbury. He held that, according to the 
fair interpretation of the ordinance, the church 
had departed from its laws. If the Synod 
really had the right which it claimed, of 
dealing in an exceptional way with special 
cases, that ought to have been more plainly 
stated among its rules. 

Sentence :— The judgment of the court 
below ought to be affirmed, and the appeal 
dismissed with costs. 

LATER PROCEEDINGS IN THE CASE. 

The Presbytery of Graaff-Reinet, to which 
the congregation of Hanover belongs, met on 
the 16th of October 1865. Mr Burgers 
claimed a s$at, in virtue of the judgment of 
the Supreme Court. By a majority of twenty- 
two to two the Presbytery resolved, that as it 
had before it the sentence of suspension by 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 73 

the commission, and as Presbyteries are bound 
to obey the higher church courts, it was not 
of its competency to acknowledge Mr Burgers 
as a member. Mr Burgers declined to leave 
his seat unless ordered to do so by the Presby- 
tery. The order was given, and complied 
with under protest. 

During the same meeting a decision was 
come to affecting the consistory or kirk- 
session of Mr Burgers. Of the six members 
of session, four had united in refusing to 
acknowledge the sentence of suspension, had 
asked Mr Burgers to continue the ministration 
of the word and sacraments, and had refused 
the minister sent in his place access to the 
church. These foyrr office-bearers were cjjeposed 
as guilty of contumacy, and new office-bearers 
chosen in their place according to the Church 
forms. 

In the course of December all the members 
who had formed the majority in the Presbytery 
were summoned to appear in the Supreme 
•Coirit, and show cause why it should not be 
declared that they had illegally deprived Mr 
Burgers of his seat, and why all their proceed- 



74 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



ings should not on that ground be declared 
null and void. 

When the case came on (May 1866), the 
Court found that Mr Burgers had been 
illegally deprived of his seat, and that the 
proceedings of the Presbytery, in so far as 
related to him and to the deposition of his 
four church- ward ens, were null and void. 
The defendants to pay the costs. 

Soon after this, Mr Burgers and his church- 
wardens moved for an interdict of the Supreme 
Court to prevent the minister acting in charge 
of the congregation of Hanover, the Rev. Dr 
Kotze of Richmond, and the members of 
session appointed in behalf of the Presbytery, 
from using the name and style of the " Dutch 
Reformed Congregation of Hanover. ,y This 
interdict was also granted. 

THE SYNOD OF 1867. 

On the 14th of October 1867 the Synod 
met for the first time after the two cases 
we have described had been decided by the 
Civil Courts. The question had to be met, 



COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 75 



whether the deposed and the suspended 
minister should be allowed to sit. It was 
agreed first to constitute the meeting, and then 
debate the question. A warm discussion of 
course ensued, in which Mr Kotze and Mr 
Burgers both took part. Thre& motions were 
proposed. The one, which was adopted by acc. 
large majority, was to the effect that the Synod 
adjourn sine die. The reason put forward by 
the proposer was to the effect that the decision 
of the Privy Council seemed to contain a 
defect, or want of distinctness, which ought to 
be explained before another step were taken. 

By correspondence with their legal advisers, 
it soon appeared that the mistake, if there were 
one, could not be rectified without beginning 
the whole case de novo. 

In the meantime, twp out of seven Presby- 
teries, and the Synod itself, are in a state of 
suspension, and the church to that extent 
disorganised. It does seem hard that just 
when signs of new vitality and zeal were 
•appearing in the Church, she should be met 
by such a hard blow from the State. Some 
will probably be of opinion, that the Ordinance, 



76 COLLISION WITH THE CIVIL COURTS. 



given to secure to the Church, her liberty, is 
really a rope round her neck, and that she 
would do well to discard it altogether, and take 
her ground on the simple footing of other 
voluntary denominations. 

Surely every right-thinking man must feel 
indignant at the procedure of these judges, as 
a manifest infringement of the law of tolera- 
tion. Had they required Messrs Burgers and 
Kotze to alter their complaint into a claim for 
damages, — -such a claim as they could allege 
on the supposition of the church's sentence 
standing sure, — the rights of all parties would 
have been respected. But to declare a spiritual 
sentence to be " null and void,'' and try to 
force the members of the church to violate 
their conscience, is, in plain words — persecu- 
tion. It is to be hoped that the church will 
take the consequences of disobedience, whatever 
these may turn out to be, rather than sacrifice 
her liberty, and forfeit the sympathy and 
respect of the whole Christian world. 



CHAPTER V. 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 

Our narrative leads us now to speak of the re- 
cently formed off-shoots of the Colonial Church. 
Many of the residents in the interior of the 
colony never became reconciled to the British 
rale. About the year 1^35 great numbers sold 
their farms for what they would fetch, and many 
hundreds of families removed with their pro- 
perty across the Northern boundary, with the 
intention of leaving British law and authority 
behind, and establishing an independent State 
beyond the limits. 

Looking back on that emigration, through 
an interval of thirty years, it does look a very 
ill-judged and unfortunate proceeding, although 
good has resulted which the actors never 
intended. It is incredible, however, that so 
many thousands should have voluntarily ex- 
patriated themselves, without reasons which, 



78 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



at least in their eyes, were very strong. The 
emigrant boers had their grievances, real and 
imaginary. 

We have seen that they had not been very 
loyal, even to their own former government. 
And to persons already in a state of discontent 
as a conquered people, small evils would 
become magnified when viewed as coming from 
the government. 

Various grievances were complained of with 
reference to the coloured races. 

One had reference to the Hottentots. As 

u 

mission stations sprang up within the colony, 
with lands attached, which offered opportunity 
to the Hottentots to settle around them, these 
began to desert the service of the farmers, who 
soon found themselves deprived of farm labour. 
A ba4. feeling arose on both sides. The farmers 
were looked on as the oppressors of the coloured 
race, and they, in their turn, became embittered 
against the coloured people and the missions. 

Another cause of discontent was the policy 
of the government, ofteu vacillating and un- 
satisfactory, in connexion with the Kafir wars. 
Heavy and repeated losses were sustained from 



EXTRA COLONTAL CHURCHES. 



79 



the depredations of the Kafirs. Many became 
discouraged, and at last lost faith in the ability 
or willingness of the government to afford 
adequate proteq£ion to life and property. 

Another grievance was furnished by the dis- 
honest way in which many were defrauded of 
their share of the compensation on the 
emancipation of their slaves. This, which, 
whether justly or not, was laid at the door of 
the government, is worth telling, were it only 
as a lively specimen of commercial morality in 
South Africa. It is well stated by Mr P. B, 
Borcherds, a much respected member of the 
Civil Service in the colony, who, at the time 
of which he writes, was Resident Magistrate of 
Capetown. He says (Autobiography, pp. 200, 
201), 

" Had the Home Government been fully- 
acquainted with all local circumstances, and 
the actual, inclination of the inhabitants to 
co-operate and promote emancipation, the 
manumission of the coloured races might have 
been effected at less expense, and with more 
satisfaction to all parties. 

At this period there existed a philanthropic 



80 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



society for purchasing young female children, 
with the object of freeing them and leaving 
them with their parents, or judiciously ap- 
prenticing them during their nonage. Had 
the funds of that society been larger, it alone, 
in a few years, might have extinguished 
slavery. An annual grant of £5000 or 
£6000, in addition to the subscriptions, 
would have been ample to effect gradually 
the object in view ; and the result of such a 
measure would have been less embarrassing to 
the owners, who were, strictly speaking, under 
the registry by Government established, coun- 
tenanced in that species of property. Such 
was then the disposition to promote emanci- 
pation, that when a slave was offered at 
public sale, and it became known that he 
was to be purchased for freedom, custom and 
feeling forbade competition, so that he might 
be liberated for a moderate sum. [Two or 
three hundred slaves were purchased and 
manumitted by this society. A representa- 
tion was made to the Government, with a view 
to secure its co-operation, but the reply was 
that this would never satisfy the impatience 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



81 



of the British public, who were bent upon 
instant and universal freedom."] 

(i The measure of compensation by valuation 
was resorted to. Had the payment been made 
in the colony according to the valuation of 
Government appraisers, the owners, especially 
landholders, would not have suffered to the 
extent some of them have, notwithstanding 
the distress through want of labour which was 
immediately felt. But the payment of the 
compensation was to be made in England ; 
the appointment of agents to receive the 
money became consequently unavoidable, and 
this led to speculation and jobbery, to the 
profit of a few speculators, but to the loss of 
the slaveholder. 

" Reports were industriously spread wide and 
far of the uncertainty of payment, or rather 
the certainty of non-payment of the compen- 
sation claims, which induced many to dispose 
of their claims at very reduced discount to 
the speculator, who had perhaps helped to 
spread the report. Some who had bought 
their slaves on credit were pressed for pay- 

* Five Lectures by Judge Cloete. p. 44. 



82 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



ment, others required capital to proceed with 
the cultivation of their lands by free labour, 
and for other incidental expenses. I am 
under the impression that vast sums have 
been realised by some of the speculators, while 
great losses were sustained by those whom the 
Government were desirous to compensate ; and 
I have no doubt a diseontent was then created, 
which, ultimately, led in the distant country 
districts to the emigration which soon after 
began to pour over the boundaries of the 
colony." 

While people were in a state of great 
excitement and discontent from the above 
causes, another element of discord of a reli- 
gious kind was added. This was a movement 
among the ministers of the Dutch Reformed 
Church to introduce a book of evangelical 
hymns in addition to the Psalms in public 
worship. This, though done with the best 
intentions, was obstinately opposed by a por- 
tion of the people. We refer to those popu- 
larly called the £C Dopj^rs," who, on the north- 
eastern frontier, were a numerous, wealthy, 
and (with their own countrymen) influential 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHUKCHES. 



S3 



class of people. They then formed a kind of 
sect within the Church, and have since been 
organised into a distinct religious community. 

Besides all these impelling motives, many 
of the younger men followed the others simply 
from a natural desire to obtain land on easy 
terms. 

The Kafir War of 1835, with the miseries 
and disorders which accompanied it, brought 
the long-growing discontent to a crisis, and a 
general determination was formed to leave the 
land of their fathers. 

North of the Orange river there lay some 
beautiful and well-watered tracts, w\here the 
farmers had long been in the habit of depas- 
turing their flocks in seasons of drought. 
Owing to a series of wars among the natives, 
of a most ferocious and bloody character, these 
districts were at this period nearly denuded of 
inhabitants. The Kafir Chief, Moselekatse, 
having destroyed the former inhabitants, the 
Betchuanas, and ravaged the country, claimed 
authority over it. The emigrant farmers 
crossed the Orange river and began to spread 
over this territory. Some parties of them 



84 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



advanced further and crossed the Vaal river. 
These were soon attacked by Mos^lpkatse, 
who murdered between fifty and sixty of 
them, and carried off many thousand head 
of cattle. They speedily recrossed the Vaal, 
but soon returned and defeated Moselekatse. 

The emigrants now began to pour over the 
Draken&berg mountains, into the land which 
has since become the colony of Natal. Their 
first fortunes there, and the melancholy massacre 
which occurred, we shall relate, following a good 
deal the words of Cloete. 

The country now called Natal was at that 
time like a wilderness emptied of its inhabit- 
ants. A few broken tribes remained, and rude 
circles of stones, thickly dotted over the plains, 
marked where the villages of a dense popula- 
tion had once stood, of which they, indeed, 
remain the monuments to the present day. 
The warlike and cruel Zulu chief, Chaka, had 
lately conquered and ravaged this entire dis- 
trict, along with adjoining districts. Chaka 
had recently been murdered by two of his own 
brothers, and one of these, Dingaan, had 
succeeded him in the chieftainship. 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



85 



Pieter Retief, whom the emigrants had 
chosen as their leader, proceeded in person 
to Dingaan's Kraal, Umcongloof, to negotiate 
with him a treaty, and obtain a formal cession 
of territory for the emigrant families. Dingaan 
agreed to the proposal, and the instrument was 
subsequently drawn out in English, and 
witnessed by a missionary of the Church of 
England, the Rev. F. Owen, who then resided 
with Dingaan. Retief was on this occasion 
accompanied by some forty or fifty horsemen, 
leading men among the Boers. His business 
being satisfactorily settled, Retief arranged to 
depart the next morning, when Dingaan 
desired him to enter his kraal once more to 
take leave of him, requesting, however, that 
his party should not enter armed, as this was 
contrary to their usage. This Retief and his 
companions unguardedly complied with, leaving 
all their arms piled up outside the kraal. 
Upon approaching Dingaan in his kraal, they 
found him surrounded as usual by two or three 
of his favourite regiments, when, after convers- 
ing in the most friendly manner, he pressed the 
company to sit down a little longer, offering 



86 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



them their " stirrup cup " in some chuallah 
(Kafir beer.) This was handed round, and 
while a number of them were sitting with the 
bowls in their hands, Dingaan suddenly ex- 
claimed, " Bulala matagati," (kill the wizards), 
and instantly 3000 or 4000 Zulus assailed 
them with knob-kerries. The farmers made 
what defence they could, and with their clasp- 
knives took the lives of several of their 
assailants, but they soon fell one after the other 
under the overwhelming pressure of thousands, 
and after a struggle of half an hour their 
mangled bodies were dragged out of the kraal 
to an adjoining hillock, the spot where the 
bones of all victims to the fury of this despot 
were hoarded up, and became a prey to the 
wolves and the vultures. 

No sooner was this massacre complete than 
Dingaan ordered ten of his regiments to march 
and utterly exterminate the emigrant families, 
who, in perfect security, were spread for many 
miles over the district. The young men were 
out in pursuit of game, and the women, seem- 
ingly also unsuspicious, were awaiting the 
return of their husbands, sons, and relatives, 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



87 



when surprised by the Zulus. The Zulu army, 
dividing itself into several detachments, fell at 
break of day on the foremost parties of the 
emigrants near the BJaauwjkrans river, and 
close to the village of Weenen, which has 
obtained its name, (meaning wailing or weep- 
ing) from the events of that day. Men, women, 
and children were barbarously murdered. 

Other detachments of Zulus surprised in 
other places similar parties, who all fell under 
the Zulu assagai. From one or two of the 
wagons, however, a solitary young man 
escaped, who, hastening to the parties further 
in the rear, at length succeeded in spreading 
the alarm, so that as the Zulus advanced 
further, the people had been able hastily to 
collect a few wagons, and arrange them into 
a " laager " just in time before they also were 
attacked. They thus succeeded in keeping 
off the enemy, not one of these " laagers " 
having been forced by the Zulus. When the 
Zulus had been beaten off, a scene of horror 
•and misery was revealed. The wagons had 
been demolished, the iron parts wrenched 
from them, and around them lay the mangled 



88 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



corpses of men, women and children. They 
found among the dead two young females, of 
ten or twelve years, who still showed faint 
signs of life. The one was pierced with nine- 
teen and the other with twenty-one stabs of 
the assagai. These were restored, and both 
lived, though as perfect cripples. With these 
solitary exceptions, all who had not been able 
to combine and concentrate themselves in 
laagers were destroyed, and in a week after 
the murder of Relief's party six hundred more 
fell victims to the treachery of Dingaan. 

It has been the lot of the writer to labour 
as pastor in the very district where these 
things occurred, and amid the relatives of the 
murdered families. There are very few in 
his congregation who cannot tell of one or 
of many relatives then murdered. In some 
cases one remained as the solitary remnant of 
a family. In the summer of 1865, happening 
to be in the neighbourhood of the Blaauw- 
krans, a farmer informed him that the banks 
had been washed away by the late rains, and 
many bones exposed. He went to the spot, 
and there indeed found many relics of the 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



89 



slaughter which happened thirty-two years 
previously. The murdered had been buried 
in heaps near the river, at the depth of two 
or three feet, and covered with stones. And 
now, the bank having given way, many skele- 
tons, some of full-grown persons, others clearly 
of babies at the breast, were exposed to view, 
and called for a second sepulture. 

We have now briefly to sum up the political 
results of this emigration, in so far as they 
need to be known for understanding the history 
of the Dutch Reformed Church. About a 
year after this massacre the Boers, having 
received reinforcements, attacked Dingaan in 
his capital, and, after two engagements, suc- 
ceeded in completely breaking his power.* 

* On Sunday, the 16th of December 1838, at a place 
called "Blood River," Dingaan's army, about 10,000 or 
12, 000 strong, fell with uncommon fury at break of day on 
the encampment of the emigrants. For three hours they 
continued rushing wildly to the attack, endeavouring to 
tear open their defences (wagons bound together and 
entertwined with brushwood), meanwhile exposing their 
dense uncovered masses to the slaughtering bullets of the 
. farmers. At the end of three hours the Zulus fled panic- 
stricken, leaving, it is said, 3000 dead, and only one or two 
of their enemy hurt. These were strongly impressed with 
a sense of the protecting care of the Almighty, and giving 



90 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



They proceeded to establish a republic in 
Natal. The British government displayed (as 
it has often done in South African affairs) a 
somewhat vacillating policy in the circum- 
stances. Troops were first sent to occupy 
the district. These were next withdrawn, and 
the colony abandoned to the Dutch emigrants. 
Then another force w T ere sent, who found 
themselves for a time blockaded in their own 
camp, and nearly starved by the Dutch. 
Lastly, a stronger force arrived to relieve the 
last, and, not without bloodshed, the British 
rule was proclaimed in 1842 . The majority 
of the Dutch emigrants subsequently moved 
out of the district. 

The country lying north of the Cape 
Colony, between the Orange and the Vaal 
rivers, and separated from Natal by the 
Drakensberg mountains, is now a republic 
called the " Orange Free State." This was 
the first territory occupied by the emigrants 

thanks, promised that the anniversary of that day should 
be observed as a day of remembrance. About four years 
ago, many families having meantime settled in the neigh- 
bourhood, they began to remember their vow, and large 
and interesting gatherings have met on the same spot for 
devotional exercises on each 16th of December since. 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



91 



on their leaving the Cape Colony. It contains 
about fifty thousand square miles, well suited 
for farming. The British government did 
not like to see an independent State rising 
there, and in 1848, after some opposition and 
one or two conflicts with our troops, it was 
annexed to the British empire by Sir Harry 
Smith, under the name of " The Orange 
River Sovereignty/' 

After six years' occupation, the British 
government determined to ab&ndon it, and Sir 
George Clerk was sent out to break up the 
government and hand the country over to its 
inhabitants. This was not done according to 
the wishes of the better thinking part of the 
people. Indeed, they accused the British 
government of breaking faith with them, for 
many had bought crown land and settled to 
farming on the understanding that they were 
coming under the protection of British law. 
They even sent two delegates (Dr. Fraser and 
I the Rev. Andrew Murray) to represent their 
-grievance in London to the Home authorities, 
but did not succeed in effecting any change of 
policy. 



92 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



This step of the government has proved 
a very unfortunate blunder in what concerns 
the peace of South Africa, and the moral and 
material welfare of its colonies. It has been 
followed by an unsettling of the Free State, 
and a state of chronic warfare between it and 
its neighbours, the Basutos. These last, how- 
ever, have been taken in 1867 under British 
protection, so that it may be hoped that 
Britain will soon do the same for the Free 
State, and repair the wrong inflicted on its 
own discarded subjects. 

North of the Vaal River the most advanced 
parties of the emigrants settled, and have 
formed what they call the u Transvaal Re- 
public." The emigration has thus led to the 
formation of three new States — two inde- 
pendent republics, and the British Colony of 
Natal. 

The social condition of these two republics, 
and more particularly of the Transvaal, is very 
bad. This is the worst aspect of their whole 
condition. The people possess neither habits 
of obedience nor men fit for places of authority. 
The Transvaal country is a beautiful land of 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



93 



not less than seventy thousand square miles, 
well watered and wooded, and fit to maintain 
a much denser population than the Cape 
Colony, All the cereals flourish luxuriantly. 
In some districts sugar, cotton, and coffee are 
grown. Coal exists in abundance. Several 
minerals and metals, including gold, have 
been found. With these natural advantages 
there exists a lamentable state of anarchy and 
misrule, dispeace among the people, and 
hostilities with the surrounding natives. The 
land is a refuge for quacks and runaways, the 
dregs of the Cape Colony and of Europe. 
General demoralization is going on, the young 
grow up untaught, and institutions for general 
improvement are made impossible. Also 
commerce and all material wealth are leaving 
the land. It would be a wise policy if the 
British crown should extend its rule to the 
extremest outpost of the white population, 
from whom, indeed, it ought never to have 
been withdrawn. 

In each of these countries, the Transvaal, 
Orange Free State, and Natal, sections of the 
Dutch Reformed Church have been formed. 



94 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



Churches in the Transvaal. 

In the Transvaal no less than three religious 
parties exist. There is, first, a Presbytery 
formed by ministers from Holland, who have 
voluntarily disconnected themselves from the 
Cape Synod. These ministers, four in number, 
are all accused or suspected of being tainted 
with Rationalism. They form the Established 
Church of the land, and enjoy such support as 
the Government is able to give. 

There is, second, a voluntary denomination, 
which calls itself the " Reformed Church." 
It was first commenced among those who 
objected to singing the hymns, and who were 
previously a kind of sect within the church. 
This party is of a more evangelical and 
living character than that previously named. 
Though strongest within the Transvaal, it has 
adherents also in the Free State and the 
Cape Colony. It has now four ministers, 
and the nucleus of a theological seminary. 

Within the last three years a third church 
party has arisen, keeping itself distinct from both 
those above named, and claiming to represent 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



95 



the Cape Synod, from which they both have 
separated. It possesses two ministers and 
several unsupplied congregations. 

We are convinced that in some of these 
congregations real work is done, amid immense 
difficulties, for the spiritual good of the people. 
Meanwhile, a loud accusation is heard against 
the land, of lawless injustice and grievous 
oppression of the natives, so that, in popular 
belief, the Boers are a shade worse than the 
heathen. Intelligent travellers wonder that 
the mission societies have never seen that it 
would have been their wisdom to have bestowed, 
during the last twenty years, at least half as 
much pains to instruct the Boers as have been 
given to the natives.* The work of most 
native missionaries in South Africa furnishes 
no comparison to the self-sacrifice required of 
those who will go, as some have generously 
done, backed by no society, to labour in the 
gospel in the present condition of the Transvaal. 

CHURCH IX XATAL. 

After the massacres already referred to and 

* Chapman, i. 123. 



96 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



the subsequent hostilities with the English, 
the Dutch emigrants to Natal found themselves 
in a sadly distressed and disorganised condition. 
A mission to the Zulus under the American 
Board was broken up for the time amid the 
same disturbances. One of these missionaries, 
the Rev. D. Lindley, finding his labour inter- 
rupted, was invited by the Boers to be their 
minister. In the circumstances he could not 
help looking on these people, now literally 
scattered as sheep without a shepherd, as a 
flock given him by the Lord. He opened a 
school for their children, learned their language, 
and for seven years laboured with enthusiasm 
as their pastor. He itinerated in Natal and 
far beyond the Drakensberg. Such was, at that 
time, the dearth of the public ordinances that 
on a single occasion more than five hundred 
children have been brought to him for baptism. 
When he discontinued these labours, the work 
was temporarily taken up by the Rev. Mr 
Dohne and other missionaries of the Berlin 
Society. By degrees the want of regular 
ministers was supplied, and there is now a 
Dutch Reformed Presbytery of Natal, compris- 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 97 



ing four congregations, and having a member- 
ship of twelve hundred. 

The Natal Government gives a grant in aid 
of minister's salary to each of these congrega- 
tions ; but by a decision of the Legislative 
Council (July 1866) these, along with all other 
ecclesiastical grants, are to be discontinued at 
the earliest vacancies. One of the chief diffi- 
culties in the way of advancement of this 
Church has been the unsettled social condition 
consequent on the hostilities at the commence- 
ment of the colony. There has been a constant 
outflow of Dutch emigrants, forsaking the 
British territory for the country beyond. Those 
who remain have been very unsettled. How- 
ever, years of peace, fair treatment, and 
harmonious fellow-working in the development 
of their beautiful territory, have done much to 
ameliorate this feeling, and bind all classes of 
the colonists together. 

THE CHURCH IN THE FREE STATE. 

' The congregations of the Free State, owing 
to their nearer proximity and easier intercourse 
with the Cape Colony, have found less difficulty 



98 EXTKA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



than those in Natal in procuring the supply of 
gospel ordinances. They now form two Pres- 
byteries, composing a Synod, and have eleven 
ministers, who all receive grants in aid from 
the Free State treasury. 

This Church has also been greatly impeded 
in its operations by the unsettled social con- 
dition of the land, and the wars with the 
natives. This has been particularly the case 
during the last three years, when the Basuto 
War seemed for a time to threaten annihila- 
tion to the Free State. 

The congregations of the Free State and 
Natal were united during the first years of 
their existence as the Presbytery of Trans- 
Gariep, and in this character were in the 
habit of sending delegates to the Synod in 
the Cape Colony. The advice of the Govern- 
ment had been asked, and the answer given, 
founded on the opinion of Her Majesty's 
Attorney-General, led the Church to believe 
that there was no illegality, under the Ordi- 
nance, in extra-colonial ministers taking their 
seats. At length, at the Synod of 1862, a 
lay member, elder of Malmesbury, objected to 
the admission of members from Natal and the 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



99 



Free State, and afterwards submitted a regular 
motion to that effect. On its rejg/ction by the 
Synod, he applied to the Supreme Court for 
an interdict to debar extra-colonial ministers 
from retaining their seats. His plea was 
that the name applied to the Church in the 
Ordinance — " denomination called the Dutch 
Reformed Church in South Africa " — could 
I refer only to the Church within the Cape 
Colony. The ultimate decision of the judges 
confirmed this view of the case, and on the 
same day the Synod requested all members 
from beyond the Boundary to vacate their seats. 

This was the first of the civil actions 
brought against the Church during the meraor- 
able Synod of 1862. It seems a great pity 
that she submitted in silence to the verdict 
of the Supreme Court. She thus virtually 
allowed the right of the civil judges to inter- 
pret for her the Ordinance, even in a matter 
purely ecclesiastical, and this no doubt smoothed 
the way for the interferences which followed. 

' This suit having been evidently commenced 
from party motives, it was followed by another, 
in which the demajjd was made that all the 
proceedings of the three Synods of 1852, 



100 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 

1857, and 1862, in which extra-colonial 
ministers had voted, should be declared ille- 
gal; or otherwise, that certain specified 
resolutions, nine in number, should be declared 
null and void. (These were resolutions of the 
most varied character, w T hich had been passed 
by the so-called orthodox majority, and by 
which the minority considered themselves 
aggrieved.) On the 13th of April 1863, 
judgment was given, in which the Court 
refused to pronounce the meetings of Synod 
or their proceedings illegal, holding, however, 
that some of the resolutions of 1862 might 
be set aside, if in an action it were proved that, 
after the elder of Malmesbury had given notice 
of his intention to have the matter brought 
before the Supreme Court, any resolution had 
obtained a majority by the presence of strangers. 

The extra-colonial congregations being thus 
separated from their mother church have, in 
their several districts, formed themselves into 
two separate self-governing denominations. 
The change has not proved hurtful to their 
spiritual interests. 

As we have already noticed the state of 
education in the Cape Colony, a few words 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 101 

may here be said regarding the same in the 
other colonies. In Natal — and the same 
applies still more to the two inland republics 
— public schools do not meet the wants of 
the Dutch settlers. It is only in rare cases 
possible to get twenty children together to 
form a school. None, however, allow their 
children to grow up untaught, if teachers be 
procurable. In Natal, nearly all the instruc- 
tion is given by private tutors. The Govern- 
ment, understanding the difficulties of the 
case, takes a certain number of these under 
its superintendence, under the name of 
"Itinerants," and supplements their salary 
with a small annual grant, on condition that 
they move their school occasionally from place 
to place, and contrive to have always at least 
eight children under tuition. The plan is 
perhaps the best that could be devised in the 
circumstances, and may soon give place to 
a better. The class of teachers has been 
improved during the last few years, and the 
standard of instruction is rising. It will be 
understood that we are describing the state of 
education generally in the inland half of the 
colony of Natal. There are public schools in 



102 EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 



the villages, but these do not overtake the 
general need. 

Humble as this state of things may be 
thought, it is higher than what exists in the 
two so-called republics, and more particularly 
in the Transvaal. There few suitable teachers 
can be induced to settle. The best instruction 
which the children in many cases receive is 
what their own parents impart with the help 
of the spelling-book, Bible, and catechism. 

We offer below such general statistics as we 
have been able to collect. The Church mem- 
bership in the Transvaal can only be roughly 
guessed. Since the dissenting Church of Mr 
Postma prevails chiefly in the Transvaal, 
although not confined to it, we have reckoned 
it, together with the other parties there, 
though regretting the awkwardness of reckon- 
ing three Church parties in one lump. Other- 
wise the statistics can be relied on as nearly 
correct. The statement of income is taken 
from the Government Blue Book for 1867. 

The proportion of ministers to members gives 
an average of nearly 1 to 800, which in the 
widely spread condition of the people is surely 
far below their requirements. 



EXTRA COLONIAL CHURCHES. 103 



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CHAPTER VI. 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 

Before concluding our sketch with a notice 
of the present condition and prospects of the 
congregations whose history we have traced, it 
may be interesting to review in one glance the 
different sections of the inhabitants, and their 
moral relations to one another. 

The population of South Africa, though 
sparse compared with that of Europe, is of a 
very miscellaneous character. We have been 
making acquaintance with the oldest white 
inhabitants, who have been in the land for 
six generations. These are mainly the lineal 
descendants of the little company who came 
with Van Riebeek in 1652. Their increase 
has been such as to remind us of that of 
Jacob's children after they went down into 
Egypt. The original company consisted of 
forty colonists (including the governor), fifteen 
women and children, and thirty soldiers. Two 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 105 

years later some young females were sent out 
from orphan houses in Amsterdam, to supply 
wives for the colonists. In 1688 came the 
French Refugees, numbering, it is said, 150. 
Individual accessions have been continuously 
added, but never a stream of immigration, and 
now their number cannot be less than 200,000. 

With regard to their social position and 
character, not much need be said, To attempt 
commending them would be mere patronising. 
In their own place they are quite as good 
as the other colonials. In the Cape Colony, 
and in Natal, numbers are eng-a^ed in 
the civil service, and they attain to the 
highest official positions. Some of their 
youth study at European Universities for the 
several learned professions. But by the great 
mass agricultural and pastoral farming are 
carried on. The ordinary trades requisite in 
their circumstances are also followed. A 
South African farm often resembles a little 
village: several employments, such as those 
of the blacksmith and wagon-maker, being 
carried on simultaneously with the farming 
operations. In remote pastoral districts there 



106 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 

cannot, as may be expected, be that external 
polish which is acquired by living in a city. 
But Lichtenstein has scarcely overdrawn it 
when he says,* " the lower class of people, in 
our quarter of the globe, are far behind the 
African peasants in a true sense of decorum as 
to their moral conduct. I will not deny that 
there may be exceptions." The tendency of a 
good deal of the civilization with which they 
have come into contact, has not been to improve. 
The chief reason why many have acquired an 
unfortunate prejudice against learning and 
education is that in so many cases before their 
eyes these go hand in hand with infidelity and 
ungodliness. 

Ever since the occupation of the Cape 
Colony by the English in 1806, a constant 
though not large stream of immigrants from 
England and Scotland, and also from Germany 
has been flowing into the land. The Church 
of England has already four bishops, and is 
putting forth zealous efforts to supply ordi- 
nances for all her adherents. The Wesleyans 
form a numerous, active, and influential body. 
Presbyterianism, apart from the Dutch Reformed 
* Travels in Africa, i., 16'' 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



107 



Church, is but poorly represented in South 
Africa. There are only six English-speaking 
Presbyterian Churches in all, three of these in 
Natal forming a Presbytery, the others standing 
isolated. Among the German settlers are 
several Lutheran congregations, and other 
bodies of Christians, the Congregationalists and 
Baptists, etc., are also represented. 

Within the Cape Colony there are 278,000 
Europeans, and 733,000 coloured people. In 
British Kaffraria, 8,200 Europeans and 
78,000 Kafirs. In Netted, 17,000 Europeans, 
and 170,000 Zulus, besides 6,665 Indian 
Coolies. Beyond the Colonies in Kaffirland 
and north of the Orange River, the population 
is estimated at 750,000: the estimate amounts 
to about two millions. In the Cape Colony 
the Dutch comprise fully more than the 
half of the European population. In Natal, 
the English outnumber the Dutch by at least 
six to one, and in the Free State and Trans- 
vaal, the Dutch outnumber the English by 
probably twenty to one. 

It thus appears that the white inhabitants 
are largely outnumbered by the native races. 
The " coloured people " in the Cape Colony 



108 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 

are of mixed origin, mainly descended from 
the former slaves, and are now assimilated to 
the Europeans in language and habits. There 
is a Malay population numbering about eight 
thousand, among whom the Mahommedan 
religion is in full exercise. These seem to be 
descendants of convicts sent from Java, Ceylon, 
and other places during the former Dutch 
period, and instead of anything being done 
(until lately) for their evangelization, they seem 
to have been very successful in gaining prose- 
lytes among the coloured people of the Cape. 
The Bushman, Hottentot, and Kafir tribes are 
too well known to need mention. The Griquas 
are a tribe of half-breeds of mingled Hottentot 
and European extraction, and in Natal the 
recently imported Coolie population increases 
year by year. 

The numerous and varied spheres of mission 
labour in South Africa, all, with one exception, 
commenced during the present century, bear 
evidence that that land attracts not a little of 
the sympathy of Christians in Europe and 
America. Of those known to us there are at 
work three English Societies, two Scotch, four 
German, one American, one French, one 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 109 



Norwegian, and one South African, thirteen 
Societies in all. We can here only remark 
generally that the Cape Colony and Natal are 
pretty well occupied by the agents of these 
Societies, and the two inland republics to a 
less extent, while many of the missionaries 
reside among independent native tribes, and 
some, particularly of the London and the 
German Societies, have gone far beyond the 
furthest limit of the white population, and are 
gradually laying down lines of stations north- 
ward toward the equator. The professedly 
Christian natives are already reckoned by 
thousands, and many of them exhibit in their 
lives the manifest fruits of the grace of God. 
But the influence of missionary teaching is not 
to be measured by these only. In many ways 
which cannot be tabulated, the Lord lets His 
blessing descend on the land where His ser- 
vants labour. Not the least interesting token 
of good is to mark how Bible truth is carried 
orally from district to district by the natives 
themselves, so that it spreads like a leaven 
into regions far beyond the personal influence 
of the missionary. Such truths as the existence 
of a Divine Power, the sanctity of the Sabbath, 



110 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



and even the efficacy of prayer we have found 
to be recognised by many Kafirs still living in 
their heathen state. The civilizing power of 
Christianity is also being widely spread, and we 
believe that the missions have more effect than 
is generally considered in preserving peace in 
the land, and general good order among the 
natives. They are certainly effective as a 
wholesome stimulus to the white congregations, 
stirring them up to emulation. 

The following table, though not quite com- 
plete, may furnish some idea of the growth, 
progress, and present efficiency of the different 
missionary societies. We have compiled it 
mostly from the various Annual Eeports for 
1867 and 1868. It must be remembered 
that two of the returns, those of the Wesleyan 
and the Gospel Propagation Societies, furnish 
reports of work among the Europeans and the 
natives combined, while the others represent 
mission work among the natives only. The 
French Protestant Mission among the Basutos 
has been for the last three years very greatly 
impeded and disarranged in consequence of 
the war raging between that tribe and the 
Free State. 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 11 



Expenditure 
for 18G7. 


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1788 

12,232 

1280 
79 

1500 

723 


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pauiep.io 


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QO CO OO CO O lO t# (M £35 CO O 
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Name of Society. 


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112 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 

The intermixture of so many races of varied 
social and religious character, brings to view 
several interesting phenomena, and suggests 
some important problems, both religious and 
political. There are not many other lands 
where the emigrant from Europe settles and 
makes his home literally in the midst of the 
heathen. The African does not, like the Red 
Indian, disappear before the white man. He 
settles down as his neighbour, adopts many of 
his habits, becomes his household servant, and 
the nurse of his children. 

Surely this state of things points to a 
design of Providence for the inbringing of 
Africa to the fold of the Gospel. Besides 
the teaching of individual missionaries, an 
agency is wanted to act on heathenism in the 
mass. It lies with the Christian community 
as a whole, to redeem the degraded moral 
tone of a heathen land, to introduce a purer 
public opinion, and permeate every walk of 
life with sanctifying influences. And this is 
a duty which society will find itself bound to 
discharge were it only for self-preservation. 

The colonist, if a Christian, if he acts to- 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



113 



ward the heathen with justice and kindliness, and 
honours his profession, wields a great power for 
good. The natives learn unconsciously to respect 
his religion and his God, and their minds become 
favourably inclined toward the truth. The hands 
of the missionary teacher are greatly strength- 
ened. On the other hand, where no beneficial 
influence is put forth, the daily contact with 
heathenism proves very demoralizing to the 
young and the old. This degrading tendency 
is lamented wherever Europeans are settled, 
and South Africa furnishes notable examples, 
that the neglect of duty to the heathen has 
found its punishment in European communi- 
ties becoming degraded and barbarised. 

It is obvious that a revival in the Churches 
in South Africa would react with blessed 
effect upon the heathen. If all members of 
our churches there were living in the true 
spirit of the Gospel, their united power, as a 
solid phalanx of Christian soldiers, would be 
such as no mission societies can put forth. 
• It would be as " life from the dead." Some 
are herein doing their part, and showing that 
they are not unmindful of the souls of their 

H 



114 GENERAL SUKVEY OF PARTIES. 

heathen neighbours. It is pleasing to find 
masters who, by example and personal influ- 
ence, seek to bring their native domestics 
under Christian instruction, and to see young 
men, who at home might be engaged in 
Sabbath-school teaching, devoting themselves 
to similar work among the Kafirs. On the 
other hand, it must be allowed, that the 
ungodly lives of many Europeans form one of 
the greatest stumblingblocks in the way of 
the gospel among the natives. 

It is also well deserving the consideration of 
Christians in Britain that many of our fellow- 
countrymen in that land do not enjoy the 
means of instruction which has been brought 
so largely within the reach of the heathen. 
It saddens one's heart to see the well-equipped 
staffs of mission congregations, and the schools 
where many thousands of native children 
receive thorough Christian instruction (which 
we are very far from grudging them), while 
many British emigrants live far removed from 
the means of grace, their families growing up 
untaught, and themselves, in too many instances, 
lapsing into habits of religious indifference. 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 115 



A few more detailed notices of the several 
religious denominations may not be uninterest- 
ing before concluding this chapter. 

The history of the Lutheran congregation 
furnishes a lively specimen of the intolerance 
of the old Dutch Government. 

The majority of the little garrison who 
came with the original colony were German 
Lutherans. A resolution was passed, shortly 
after, permitting them to join, if they chose, 
in the ordinances in the Dutch Church. 
When they increased in number, however, 
they naturally wished to have a church of 
their own. In 1714, an increase of the 
garrison, composed mostly of German soldiers, 
brought a considerable addition to their num- 
ber. The East India Company, however, in 
the arbitrary spirit then prevailing, threw 
many obstacles in their way. The Lutherans 
continued to petition for their rights, and to 
collect the necessary funds. A letter written 
from the Cape in 1766 states: " For fifteen 
years the effort has been made, but without 
success, to secure a minister and church for 
ourselves. The Lutheran Pastor Hooyman, 



116 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



on his way to Batavia, announced that he was 
instructed by the Lutheran coetus of Amster- 
dam to inquire as to the number of Lutherans 
at the Cape, and whether they were able of 
their own means to build a church and 
guarantee the support of a minister, which 
task he has diligently performed. Besides 
contributions, tradesmen have pledged them- 
selves, — if the petition be granted, — to give 
their work at the building of the church for a 
certain time without charge, also to furnish 
the necessary materials, stones, lime, timber, 
etc. The principal Lutherans are from Ham- 
burgh, or from Denmark and Sweden." 

It was not until 1771, a hundred and 
twenty years after their first settlement at 
the Cape, that permission was given them by 
the Government to assemble and conduct wor- 
ship according to the forms of the Lutheran 
Church. In 1778, leave was granted them 
to build a church. No member of the 
Lutheran Church was then eligible for any 
Government office. Any Lutheran minister 
guilty of baptizing a child of Reformed 
parents was liable to a heavy fine. 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 117 

The Lutheran congregation at Capetown 
has had, since 1836, two ministers. In 1847 
a secession took place from the congregation, a 
portion of the members not being able to 
subscribe certain High-Church Lutheran doc- 
trines. The seceders have built a church for 
themselves. There is a small Lutheran 
Church at Stellenbosch, and several in the 
Eastern province, where many German immi- 
grants have settled. There are also two 
Lutheran congregations, at New Germany 
and New Hermannsburg in Natal. 

This being the way in which the Govern- 
ment treated the colonists and its own servants, 
it is not surprising that little liberty was 
granted to missionaries from abroad. The 
following extract from the Minute Books of 
the Dutch Reformed congregation at Cape- 
town, of date 17th. December 1805, gives a 
curious insight into the state of matters pre- 
vailing with regard to missions prior to sixty 
years ago. 

" A letter was read from the missionaries, 
J. T. Van der Kemp and J. Read, addressed 
to the consistory of the Reformed congrega- 



118 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



tion, requesting the consistory's concurrence, 
that they should engage in teaching the 
heathen during their stay in the capital. The 
members were unanimously of opinion that 
the request be granted, provided the appli- 
cants would positively declare that they would 
act in this matter as private persons, inas- 
much as the regulations of Commissary- Gene- 
ral De Mist, published by the Government, 
15th Feb. 1805, expressly require that 'no 
missionary of any society be allowed to labour 
within the limits of the Colony, least of all 
within congregations already established.' The 
consistory, therefore, did not feel themselves 
authorized to have any dealings with them 
in that capacity. 

" The brethren, Van der Kemp and Read, 
appeared in the meeting, and, being made 
acquainted with the decision of the consistory, 
declared ' that they were and would remain 
missionaries 7 and in this respect were to be 
regarded — as missionaries who were hindered 
in carrying out their commission, and who 
desired meantime to labour here in that rela- 
tion.' It is added, ' it was explained to them 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 119 



that the name made no difference to the case, 
if after all the desired end were attained, and 
that it was not obvious how their conscience 
should be thereby in the least aggrieved, but 
all in vain. The consequence was that all 
further intercourse with them was broken off." 
The two brethren were on the point of leaving 
the colony for Madagascar, but in the course 
of the following month the colony passed into 
the hands of the English, and they remained. 

The condition of the Dutch Reformed 
Church is manifestly improving. During the 
last generation, and particularly since its mem- 
bers have begun regularly to meet in Synod, 
it has begun to put forth increased energy 
and activity. Schools and mission congrega- 
tions for the instruction of the coloured people 
have been established in many of the villages. 
Much liberality has been manifested of late 
years. Very large sums have been collected 
for the building of churches, for the erection 
and support of schools, and the endowment 
• of the Theological Seminary at Stellenbosch. 
(Among the schools we may name those at 
the Paarl, Stellenbosch, Graaff-Reinet, Middel- 



120 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



burg, etc.) To us it seems very obvious that 

one step needed to promote its efficiency 

would be that the connexion in which it up till 

now has stood to the Government should 

entirely cease. During recent years, other 

denominations, such as the Anglican and the 

Wesleyan, have been making progress, so 

much more rapid as may well provoke the 

Dutch Church to jealousy. 

In 1806, soon after the capture of the 

Settlement, a colonial chaplain was appointed 

for the English residents. For many years 
* 

the Anglican service was held in a building 
belonging to the Dutch Reformed communion. 
At Simon's Town, which was a large military 
and naval station, a chaplain was appointed 
in 1811, and one at Grahamstown in 1821. 
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
sent out its first agent in 1820. 

When the present able and indefatigable 
bishop came in 1848, the Church of England 
was represented in South Africa by thirteen 
clergymen and one catechist. The task of 
supplying ordinances was extremely difficult, 
on account of the extremely scattered con- 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



121 



dition of the English inhabitants. The 
coming of Dr. Gray formed a new era for 
the English Church in South Africa. New 
churches have sprung up in every direction. 
Help has been given, and the people stirred 
up to help themselves. There are now the 
dioceses of Capetown, Grahamstown, Natal, 
and the Free State (besides that of St. Helena 
under the same Metropolitan). The clergy- 
men number now more than a hundred, many 
of whom labour among the natives. Mission 
work has also been commenced for the 
Mahommedans in and about Capetown. " The 
cause of education has received an impulse, 
not only by the introduction of many regularly- 
trained teachers, but on a higher scale, by the 
establishment of a Diocesan Collegiate School 
at Woodlands, and of St. Andrew's College at 
Grahamstown, also of a Native College at 
Zonnebloem, near Capetown, for the instruc- 
tion of the children of native chiefs and other 
persons of the native races in and beyond the 
' colony." The number of communicants is 
stated (Report, 1867) at 4616 for all South 
Africa, and the expenditure of the Society for 



122 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



the Propagation of the Gospel at £10,963, 
besides which much is contributed locally, and 
some grants are received from the colonial 
treasury. 

Wesley an Missions were commenced in 
South Africa in 1815, when the Rev. Bar- 
nabas Shaw began a mission among the 
Namaquas. His work had great success. In 
1818, the Rev. E. Edwards arrived to assist 
Mr Shaw. Other missionaries followed. A 
great impulse was given to the cause of 
Wesleyanism in 1820, when three thousand 
British settlers were located in the district of 
Albany, the most of whom were of the Wes- 
leyan persuasion. Their leader was the Rev. 
Benjamin Shaw, the brother of Barnabas. 
They have prospered and extended their 
efforts greatly. In the city of Grahamstown, 
they are the most influential religious body, 
in numbers equalling, if not surpassing, all 
the other denominations put together. A 
handsome place of worship has been built in 
Grahamstown, called " Commemoration chapel/' 
to mark the gratitude of the settlers for the 
Lord's mercies enjoyed during forty years. 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 123 



Altogether there is no religious body in 
South Africa which is more active and ener- 
getic than are the followers of Wesley. The 
same lively earnestness and aggressive zeal is 
here exhibited, which they have displayed in 
so many other parts of the world. Their 
missions are now divided into five districts, 
with 53 central stations or circuits, and a 
membership of 11,367. Besides work in the 
English, Dutch, and various Kafir languages, 
they have an interesting mission carried on in 
Hindi, Hindustani, and Tamil, among the 
Coolie population in Natal. 

Presbyterianism among the English-speaking 
population has not made much way in South 
Africa. The Scotch Presbyterian church at 
Capetown was opened in 1828. The present 
excellent and much esteemed minister, the 
Rev. G, Morgan, called in 1841, was previously 
minister of the Dutch Reformed congregation 
at Somerset East. After the disruption of 
the Church of Scotland in 1843, an attempt 
was made to establish a Free Church in Cape- 
town. The building stands, now used for 
other purposes, as the project did not succeed. 



124 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



At Port Elizabeth there is an influential 
congregation, and at Beaufort West and Vic- 
toria West are small congregations at present 
unsupplied. At Grahamstown the Indepen- 
dents and Presbyterians form a united con- 
gregation. At King William's Towu, a small 
Presbyterian congregation has been formed 
which has not yet found a minister. We 
have already mentioned that in Natal there is 
a Presbytery with three congregations. 

We take leave to transcribe the following 
interesting sentences regarding the Romanist, 
the Mahommedan, and the Jewish sections of 
the colonists from the pen of the late lamented 
W. R. Thpmson, in the " Pictorial Album of 
Capetown :" — " The Roman Ca%olics are not 
a numerous body in the colony, but the clergy 
are singularly active and energetic, and their 
people very liberal in their gifts. They lately 
collected a considerable sum of money in 
Capetown for the erection of schools for the 
poorer classes of the community. Besides the 
cathedral in Capetown, they have a chapel 
and school at Rondebosch, one at Simon's 
Bay, one at Malmesbury, and one at George, 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



125 



in the Western Province. In the Eastern 
Province, there was opened at Port Elizabeth 
lately, with great ceremony, a Roman Catholic 
church, which is in many respects the finest 
ecclesiastical building in the colony/' " There 
is a handsome church at Graham's Town, 
which is the seat of a bishopric. In no other 
place in the colony have the Romanists shown 
more activity and zeal. Their schools and 
institutions are very popular, even with those 
who differ most widely from them in religious 
views and principles. There are chapels at 
Fort Beaufort, Alice, and King William's 
Town, and occasional services are held by the 
bishop and priests at other places." 

In Xatal there are one or two Romanist 
congregations, and they have a very consider- 
able missionary staff at work among the 
Basutos. 

" The Malays, with the Negroes from the 
east coast, numbering not less than ten 
thousand, are nearly all Mohammedans. They 
' have three places of worship called mosques, 
although in no way resembling religious 
edifices of that name in the East. Their 



126 GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 



priests, some of whom have made a pilgrimage 
to Mecca, are so woefully ignorant that the 
Sultan of Constantinople, a few years ago, 
sent out the Effendi, Abou Beker, to instruct 
them in the very elements of the Mohamme- 
dan faith." 

A Jewish synagogue was erected at Cape- 
town about the year 1863. " The Jews in 
Capetown and the colony are not only as 
active and persevering men of business as they 
are ail the w x orld over, but some of them who 
have acquired wealth and station are among 
the most liberal, public-spirited, and influen- 
tial of the citizens." 

" Perfect toleration is extended to all reli- 
gious denominations in the colony, and all, 
except the voluntaries, participate in the 
ecclesiastical grants made from the public 
Treasury. The sums, however, are very 
unequally distributed, and in most cases 
absorbed by the larger towns, which require 
least aid. The Dutch Reformed Church 
receives £9000, the English Episcopal £5000, 
the Roman Catholic £1000, the Wesleyan 
£6500, the Lutheran £214, the Scotch £200, 



GENERAL SURVEY OF PARTIES. 127 

and the Missionary Church for Apprentices 
(St. Stephen's), £200. Of these sums Cape- 
town alone takes £3000, Graham's Town 
£900, George Town £500, Simon's Town 
£450 ; Graaff-Reinet, Cradock, and Stellen- 
bosch take £400 each ; Port Elizabeth, Swel- 
lendam, Caledon, Beaufort West, Fort Beaufort, 
and Colesberg £300, and some other places 
£200 each." 

In Natal a similar system of indiscriminate 
endowment exists, though it is there on a 
much smaller scale. The Legislature of Natal 
has resolved to put an end to all ecclesiastical 
grants at the demission of the present holders, 
and a vigorous agitation is maintained in the 
Cape Colony to get a similar arrangement 
made. 



CHAPTER VII. 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 

The reader may wish to know something 
about the modes of ministerial labour, and the 
internal condition and prospects of the Dutch 
Reformed churches whose history we have been 
tracing. 

In the older districts of the colony, ministerial 
labour does not greatly differ from that in 
country districts at home. Forgetting the 
Dutch language, one could often imagine 
himself worshipping in a village in Scotland. 
It is the same simple Presbyterian form ; there 
is the same agency of Bible-class, Sabbath- 
school, and prayer-meeting. 

In the inland districts the parishes are larger 
and less manageable. The sparseness of the 
population, along with the migratory habits of 
some, brings many peculiar difficulties. It 
entails a painful lack of the means of education. 
People are denied much of that mental stimulus 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 129 

which arises from intercourse with their fellow- 
men. It makes it difficult to bring them 
within reach of the means of grace, limits the 
intercourse of minister and people, and weakens 
all ties of church connexion. Pastoral labour 
is therefore peculiarly laborious. A minister 
requires also a considerable administrative 
ability, for much miscellaneous business falls 
upon him, from which in other circumstances 
he would be relieved. 

In many of the country districts a minister 
cannot expect ever to see his entire congrega- 
tion assemble at any one place. The congre- 
gation may probably average from four to eight 
hundred members, while he finds on ordinary 
Sabbaths forty or fifty persons in church. Only 
at the quarterly communions can he expect- 
to see a full attendance. He finds his parish- 
ioners scattered over an area fifty or a hundred 
miles in length. For the more distant he 
probably finds a church or meeting-house built 
on the open veldt at one or more centrica . 
•spots. There he holds occasional service, and 
finds his only opportunity of meeting many of 
his people. 



130 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 



Let us try to describe such a scene. Arriv- 
ing on Friday evening, the minister finds 
several ox-wagons already standing by the 
church. A little vestry-room is fitted up for 
his lodgings. Early on Saturday the most of 
the congregation are assembled. From the 
recesses of the capacious wagon come forth 
men, women, and children, a tent, a table, 
chairs and stools, bedding, cooking utensils, 
and all that is necessary to maintain a family 
for three or four days. The wagons are 
ranged in long rows on all sides of the church, 
with tents between, and thus they remain 
encamped till Monday morning. The more 
distant of them may have been not less than 
two days in coming, so that going to church 
and returning may occupy a week. 

On Friday evening there is prayer-meeting 
or sermon, and the Word sounds very precious, 
and the minds of all are solemnised from the 
knowledge that these opportunities come so 
seldom, and from the fact, as is often the case, 
that some one of our number has been called 
away in the months gone by since the last 
meeting, and the extreme likelihood that we 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 131 



shall never all meet again on earth. On 
Saturday forenoon we meet the young people 
applying for membership, and then assemble 
all the children for catechising. It is a lively 
little congregation of all ages from five to 
twenty. They listen with delight, as children 
always do, to the Bible stories, repeat with great 
promptness the tasks prescribed on the last 
occasion, and display in general a very credit- 
able amount of Scripture knowledge. If, as 
generally happens, the communion be held on 
the following day, the preparation service takes 
place on Saturday evening. The sweet exer- 
cises of the communion occupy all the Sabbath, 
and on Monday morning, after a parting half 
hour of prayer, the gathering breaks up, and 
all return home. 

Many ministers have two or three centres 
where they thus dispense quarterly communion. 
In the intervals weekly service is held for the 
families near enough to attend the church, 
besides pastoral visitation, and an occasional 
week-day service, as the minister's strength may 
allow. When visiting through his parish, he 
feels thankful if, being in the saddle from sun- 



132 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 



rise to sunset, he can reach in one day more 
than three or four families. Much can also be 
done by visiting the country schools, recom- 
mending and aiding suitable teachers, and 
circulating profitable literature ; and it is 
uniformly found that efforts honestly put 
forth, however imperfectly, for the improve- 
ment of the people, are attended with good 
results. 

This ministerial labour is attended with 
much physical exertion. Fifteen hundred or 
two thousand miles each year may be reckoned 
an ordinary amount of itinerating, and this 
without the facilities of Europe. The means 
of locomotion are the saddle-horse, the spring- 
cart, or the ox-wagon. It has to be performed 
sometimes under a scorching sun, amid drench- 
ing rains, through swollen rivers, across arid 
plains or over rugged boulder-strewn hills. 
Generally, however, the weather is excellent, 
aud the journeys, though laborious, far from 
unpleasant. The people manifest abundant 
hospitality ; and much of the Lord's good- 
ness is experienced by the way. The labourer 
in the Lord's work often finds his hourly 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 1 3 3 



wants supplied with as marked a display of 
His providing care as those of the prophet by 
the brook Cherith. 

A journey over those silent African plains, 
as different as possible from the hurry and 
excitement of European travel, furnishes many 
hours specially favourable to the flow of serious 
thought. ' Even pulpit preparation may be 
carried on by the way. 

In all these districts circumstances are 
improving, and will improve as the population 
increases and the land becomes subdued. 

It deserves to be mentioned here that a 
good deal is done apart from ministerial labour 
to cherish the flame of religious life. People 
meet for prayer at stated times and places. 
There are some gifted by the Spirit of God to 
be leaders, able to exhort the congregation 
and to catechise the young. We are con- 
vinced that much good is thus done ; that 
often the flame of spiritual life is thus kept 
alive in the South African wilderness, where 
no ordained minister is near. 

A good deal is being done to circulate 
profitable literature. A society has been 



134 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 



formed, with agents in the different congre- 
gations, through which a number of fresh 
books are annually distributed for old and 
young readers. Many of the books most 
prized at home are also highly appreciated 
there. To name a few, the works of Newton, 
Baxter, and Krummacher, the books of Ryle, 
Spurgeon's Sermons, M'Cheyne's Life and 
Sermons, such lives as those of Henry Martyn 
and Hedley Yicars, and many more books of 
the same class, are widely read in South 
Africa in Dutch translations. " Line upon 
line," translated, extended, and profusely illus- 
trated, and there known as the Kaapsche 
Kinder-Bybel, is the book which is first put 
into the hands of the Dutch farmers' children. 

It will be seen that the field of Christian 
activity is both interesting and hopeful. 
Ministers are needed to preach the Gospel 
in its simplicity, and who do not shrink from 
hard pioneering labour. A reformation is also 
needed both of the prevailing ideas and prac- 
tice as to education. This Christian effort is 
in some respects harder than mission work 
among the heathen. Where the natives on 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 135 



a station are gathered within a stone-cast of 
the church and the school, the task of teaching 
them becomes comparatively easy. 

It would be a delicate task, and one to 
which we find ourselves scarcely called, to say 
much regarding the spiritual state of these 
churches, and the degree and kind of vitality 
they manifest. Having told the leading facts 
of their history, we leave it rather to the 
reader to form his own opinion, and judge of 
the tree by its fruits. 

Some causes of weakness have been clearly 
indicated, — the civil restraints pressing down 
their life from the very commencement, the 
scattered and migratory state of the population, 
and the insufficient supply of pastoral labour. 
There is much in the past to make her friends 
feel ashamed. There is much lost ground to be 
regained. Her members have fallen short of 
their duty in many things, notably so in regard 
to their outlying population, and in care for 
those of the natives who have always been 
kept in domestic service. Perhaps the most 
marked defect of the religious life, looked at 
generally, is a bare contentedness with church 



136 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 

membership, dependence on outward ordi- 
nances and profession, without the power ; 
and this is surely to be explained by the 
distressing want of pastoral labour and faithful 
dealing with the young and the old. The 
rolls of membership are swelled by the names 
of many who are not regular communicants, 
and whose connexion with the church is 
often very loose. In better wrought congre- 
gations, these would either become regular 
communicants or fall into the category of 
mere adherents. 

Still, there is abundant cause for thankful- 
ness as to the past, and hope as to the future. 
If thirst for the Word of God, habits of family 
religion, desire for the pious up-bringing of the 
young, be good tokens, all these are found 
among those of whom we write. Believing 
men and women are there, as truly walking 
with God, and bringing up their children in 
the fear of Him, as in any land in the world. 
Some there are, men of prayer and of faith, 
whom the Lord has endowed to be pillars of 
His cause, letting their light shine, and with- 
out whose help every minister would feel his 



PRESENT CONDITION — PROSPECTS. 137 



hands tied. And faithful ministers do not 
labour there without tokens of the Divine 
blessing. There have also been seasons of 
revival. The year 1859, which brought so 
rich a spiritual harvest to some other lands, 
was also a blessed season for South Africa. 
But this is our most crying need, what the 
Lord's people are praying and waiting for, an 
outpouring of the Spirit on ministers and 
people. 

The great increase of churches, schools, and 
kindred privileges during the last twenty years 
is already bearing fruit, and promises, if the 
Lord grant His blessing, to produce many 
beneficial changes in the next generation. At 
the same time, the reader would be greatly 
mistaken were he to suppose that all the 
influences imported into the land with the 
English occupation have been of a beneficial 
kind. 

Knowing well the ill odour in which the 
South African boers are everywhere held, we 
have written so far under pressure of the feeling 
that anything favourable about them will 
scarcely be believed. If they were only better 



138 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 



known, we are convinced they would find more 
respect and sympathy. 

If one only looks at the antecedents and 
surroundings of the much-abused " boers,"* 
enough will be found to account for the back- 
ward condition of a portion of them, without 
attributing to them as a sin what is only their 
misfortune. Suppose a body of settlers from 
any civilized country you please, set down in 
the wilds of Africa two hundred years ago. Let 
them be cut off from intercourse with Europe, 
or carry on such communication as they have in 
a foreign language. Deny them the regular 
means of grace, the means of education, and 
even the restraints of law. Add the degrading 

* Boer, (German, bauer) is the ordinary Dutch name for 
an agricultural farmer. When acclimatized in English, it 
becomes an ill-sounding, ugly name. 

It seems to have been first introduced to the public by 
English travellers and lion-hunters, who thought to make 
their pages amusing by good-natured caricatures of the 
idiosyncracies of the ' 6 Boers, " and it has been continued, 
not in the best taste, in the reports of various missionaries. 
Such is the ignorance at home, that Newspaper paragraphs 
frequently occur, of which the writers have obviously 
imagined the "Boers" to be a native African tribe, like 
the Zulus, or the Basutos. A fitter name could easily be 
found. 



PRESENT CONDITION . 



PROSPECTS. 



139 



influences of slavery. Put them in circum- 
stances that make marriage customary at six- 
teen years of age. Give their children for 
playmates little naked Hottentots, till they 
imbibe heathen ideas and phrases with their 
mother's milk. And at the end of six genera- 
tions in what condition would you expect their 
descendants to be found ? We have omitted 
one other deteriorating influence, though last 
not least, the swarm of unprincipled Europeans, 
the dregs of Britain, Holland, and Germany, 
who range over the land, to prey on the 
simplicity of these farmers, and do what they 
can to impart to them all the evil and none of 
the good which Europe contains. 

The mention of these things may easily 
suggest a very exaggerated notion of their 

CO •/ oo 

shortcomings. We only say that all these 
things have had their influence, and must 
not be forgotten by those who would rightly 
understand their present condition. The 
fallen state of a portion of them does indeed 
point a moral to Christians both at home and 
abroad. It will be found the universal result 
where men from Christian lands live in 



140 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 



contact with heathen races, and allow them- 
selves to be contaminated. Nor have the 
children of English settlers shown themselves 
to be, in the second and third generation, one 
whit more advanced than those from Holland. 

It may be expected of us to say something 
about that reproach with which their name is 
universally associated, and which still rests as 
a stigma on at least a portion of them, the 
charge of unfair treatment of the natives and 
the missions. We admit, of course, that the 
charge is true to a painful and humiliating 
extent. Its origin lies mainly in the circum- 
stance that the Cape was a slave-holding 
colony for nearly two centuries, and that 
slavery has been abolished only within the 
memory of men still living. It would be a 
poor defence to say that similar enormities 
have been committed in British colonies else- 
where. But this injustice is chargeable almost 
exclusively on those who live beyond the bounds 
of civilized law, and who have long been left 
(as in the Transvaal) almost without the means 
of grace. The charge does not apply to all, or 
the majority of the Dutch population. The 



PRESENT CONDITION — PROSPECTS. 141 



missionaries would be ungrateful indeed were 
they unwilling to acknowledge the receipt of 
very much kindness and cordial assistance at 
the hands of many Dutch farmers. In the 
Cape Colony the Reformed congregations have 
begun to recognize and act upon their duty as 
a missionary church. In Natal, where the 
Dutch emigrants have found some of their 
earliest and truest friends among the mission- 
aries, the most cordial relations subsist. A 
native mission was maintained by the Dutch 
Reformed congregations in Natal for about 
three years, and though discontinued for a 
time, it is intended to resume it at the first 
opportunity. 

But we cannot avoid giving utterance to 
our impression that missionaries and their 
friends have sometimes overstated their case, 
or have not made sufficient allowance for 
mitigating circumstances. They have had 
almost exclusive access to the ear of the 
Christian public, which has consequently 
heard only their side of the question. We 
have been astonished at the onesidedness of 
some, dear to us in the Lord, whose hearts 



142 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 

glow with unbounded charity toward the 
heathen, while they never seem to feel that, 
on their own principles of Christian love, a 
little forbearance ought to be extended towards 
those of their own colour whose lot has been 
cast amid so many heathenizing influences. 
The hard speeches and indiscriminating re- 
proaches, at the expense of our own dear 
people, to which we have sometimes been 
forced to listen, remind us of an expression 
once used by O'Connell in the House of 
Commons. During the struggle which pre- 
ceded the slave-emancipation, the champion 
of Irish rights felt impatient that the sym- 
pathies of philanthropists flowed all in one 
direction, while the wrongs of his own coun- 
trymen at home were quite ignored. He 
exclaimed, " Oh, I wish we were blacks ! if the 
people of Ireland were only black, we would 
have the honourable member for Weymouth 
(Fowell Buxton) coming down as large as life, 
supported by all the ' friends of humanity ' in 
the back rows, to advocate our cause." 

The wonder really is that we do not find 
them more fallen than they are. They have 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 14 3 

always preserved their respect for the Bible, 
and their habits of public and family religion. 
Vices (as drunkenness and immorality) which 
are prevalent in Europe, are proverbially rare 
among them. And the Lord has His own 
children, blossoming often like desert flowers 
in the most unexpected circumstances. On 
alighting at cabins on the solitary South 
African veldt, the living fruits of divine grace 
existing there have sometimes impressed us 
with as sincere wonder and admiration as 
were the feelings of Park, when on a memor- 
able occasion he found a tuft of moss. 

The Word of God has been to them not 
only a means of grace, but in a sense v/hat it 
was to the Israelites of old, the means, in 
times of social dilapidation, of preserving and 
keeping them alive as a people. It has been 
their bond of union, their code of manners, 
their motive to educate their children, when 
no other stimulus existed. 

Life in the African solitudes, into which 
the turmoil of the great world sends but a 
feeble echo, is not unfavourable to the growth 
of piety. There, apart from the strifes and 



144 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 

passions of mankind, the unseen realities seem 
to come very near, and earthly interests to be 
of secondary moment. 

" As I sit apart by the caverned stone, 
Like Elijah, at Horeb's rock alone, 
And feel as a moth in the mighty hand 
That spread the heavens and heaved the land, 
A still small voice comes through the wild 
Like a father consoling his fretful child, 
That banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear, 
Saying — Man is distant, but God is near." 

Our sketch of their history indicates traces 
of progress and advancement, though by no 
means so rapid as was to be desired. There 
is hope of more advancement. There are on 
every side tokens of reviving energy. The 
Lord has not left this church unblessed. The 
leaven so long hidden manifests itself in more 
evident activity. The mustard seed has taken 
root and fills the land. May the Lord grant 
of His great goodness that this church may 
become a missionary church in the highest 
sense, a holy leaven in the midst of heathen- 
dom, where He has planted it. The story of 
the past makes us thank God and take 
courage. We do fully believe that this 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 145 

people, who throughout their lonely sojourn in 
the African solitudes have not lost their love 
of the pure Gospel, which came with them 
from their native Netherlands, a land of 
martyrs and of heroic struggles for truth and 
liberty, and with whom the seed of the 
honoured Huguenots is mingled, have better 
days awaiting them. 

When we view the progress already made 
by the Gospel in South Africa, and particularly 
during the last sixty years, we may well ex- 
claim in wonder and gratitude, " what hath 
God wrought !" The eye rests on many an 
oasis in the spiritual wilderness on which the 
heavenly shower descends, many a gathering 
of believers, and lively Sabbath School, and 
thriving mission station, spots where the 
desert has already begun to blossom as the 
rose. There is yet a long way from all the 
native tribes being even professedly Christian, 
nor do all classes of the Europeans correspond 
in their lives to the profession they bear. 
But the Gospel has obtained a firm and ever- 
strengthening hold of the land. The languages 
of South Africa have been mastered, grammars 

K 



146 PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. 



and dictionaries compiled, and translations of 
the Word of God, and many other books, have 
been executed. The mission congregations 
are already beginning to furnish a native 
ministry ; and to us it seems very evident 
that religion among the European and native 
population has, during the last few years, been 
hopefully reviving. 

In Natal, the district with which we are 
personally best acquainted, notwithstanding 
stumbling-blocks and lamentable unfaithfulness 
amongst churchmen in high places, there has 
been a marvellous display of God's gracious 
goodness. We look back to thirty years ago, 
when the country was given over to heathen 
darkness and cruelty, and the bands of Chaka 
and Dingaan scoured the land like hungry 
wolves. Now the land yields its increase, 
and the inhabitants sit in peace, every one 
under his own vine and fig-tree. Churches 
and schools have risen on every side. The 
means of instruction are provided more 
or less abundantly for every section of the 
people ; and natives come from the remote 
interior, and are taught the love of that 



PRESENT CONDITION PROSPECTS. i47 

Saviour who invites to His arms all nations 
of men. 

Meanwhile that the southern corner of 
the continent has thus been visited by the 
gospel, the adjoining northerly portion, which 
geographers used to tell us was an uninhabited 
desert, has been explored and found to consist 
of fertile provinces teeming with inhabitants, 
and to these districts South Africa is the most 
accessible gate of entrance. It is not difficult 
to conceive in fancy a bright vision of what 
may be in prospect, if the Lord withhold not 
His blessing ; when the leavening power of 
the Word shall have spread more widely ; 
when the light kindled at so many points 
may shine with bright and steady radiance ; 
when, instead of missionaries coming from 
Europe and America, the South African 
churches shall be themselves the missionaries 
to carry the light into the regions beyond. 



THE END. 



APPENDIX. 



ORDINANCE. 

Enacted by the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, with the 
advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof, for 
repealing the Church Begtdations of the 25th July, 1804, 
and enacting others in their stead, 

Whereas the Church Regulations made and published by 
the Conimissioner-General of the then Batavian Govern- 
ment of the Cape of Good Hope, J. A. de Mist, LL.D., 
bearing date the 25th July 1804, have, in many respects, 
ceased to be suitable either to the Dutch Reformed Church 
or to the ecclesiastical condition of this Colony in general : 
And whereas it is expedient, in order that other and more 
suitable provisions should be substituted for such portions 
of the regulations aforesaid as have become obsolete and 
inapplicable, that the said regulations should be wholly 
repealed, and the substance of such of them as it is desir- 
able to preserve, expressly re-enacted : Be it therefore 
enacted by the Governor of the Colony of the Cape of Good 
Hope, with the advice and consent of the Legislative 
Council thereof, that the said Church Regulations of the 
25th of July 1804, and all other laws or customs heretofore 
in force in this Colony, so far as the same are repugnant to 
or inconsistent with any of the provisions of this Ordinance, 
shall be, and the same are hereby repealed. 

II. And be it enacted and declared that no religious 
community or denomination within this Colony is or shall 
be entitled to claim, as matter of right, from or out of Her 
Majesty's revenue in this Colony, any pecuniary contribu- 
tion or allowance, for or towards the support of the 
ministry of any such community or denomination, or any 
other object whatsoever, and that all such sums as shall, 
from time to time, be granted from and out of the said 
revenue, to or in behalf of any such community or deno- 
mination, shall be deemed to be merely voluntary and 
gratuitous, and, as such, to be at all times and exclusively 
under the absolute disposition and control of Government, 
and revocable at Her Majesty's will and pleasure. 



150 



APPENDIX. 



III. And whereas it is expedient that the religious com- 
munity or denomination commonly called the Dutch 
Reformed Church in South Africa should be invested with 
the power of regulating its own internal affairs : And 
whereas the General Assembly or Synod of the said Church 
is the natural and proper ecclesiastical authority by which 
rules and regulations for the Government of the said Church 
in its own internal affairs may rightfully be made : And 
whereas the last General Assembly or Synod of the said 
Church, which was held in Cape Town in the month of 
November 1842, did agree upon, and desire to have duly 
authorized and established, a number of rules and regula- 
tions, having for their object the proper direction and 
management of the said Church in its own internal affairs : 
And whereas it is expedient, in order to prevent delay and 
inconvenience, that the said last mentioned rules and 
regulations should, with some exceptions, be forthwith 
established, and declared to form and be the rules and 
regulations for the time being of the said Church : Be it 
enacted that all former rules and regulations for the 
government of the said Church, whensoever and by whom- 
soever made, shall be, and the same are hereby declared to 
be, repealed, and that the several rules and regulations in 
the Schedule to this Ordinance contained shall be, and the 
same are hereby declared to be, the rules and regulations 
for the time being of the said Church, and shall be duly 
observed as such. 

IV. And be it enacted that it shall be lawful for the 
General Assembly or Synod of the said Church, from time 
to time duly assembled, and proceeding in conformity with 
the rules or regulations for the time being in regard to the 
manner and form of altering, enlarging, and improving 
Church Laws and Ordinances, to add to, annul, alter, 
enlarge, or improve the rules and regulations contained in 
the said Schedule, and any further or other rules and 
regulations which may from time to time be successively 
established : Provided, always, that any rule or regulation 
of the said General Assembly or Synod repugnant to or 
inconsistent with any of the provisions of this Ordinance 
shall be null and void. 

V. And be it enacted that in every case in which a 
vacancy shall occur in the office of minister in any congre- 
gation belonging to the said Church, of which congregation 
the minister for the time being receives a salary from the 



APPENDIX. 



151 



Colonial Government, the Governor of this Colony for the 
time being shall have and possess, and shall exercise in 
whatever manner he shall deem the best for the vacant 
congregation, the sole unrestricted right of filling up such 
vacancy, by the appointment of whatever individual he 
may select from amongst the number of such ministers as 
shall by the rules and regulations of the said Dutch 
Reformed Church for the time being be competent to be 
appointed to supply vacancies in the ministry thereof. 

VI. And be it enacted that the said Dutch Reformed 
Church shall be and remain a Church exercising its 
discipline and government by Consistories, Presbyteries, and 
a General Assembly or Synod, and acknowledging, receiv- 
ing, and professing, in regard to the doctrine thereof, the 
doctrines contained in the Confession of the Synod of Dort 
and in the Heidelberg Catechism ; and if any questions, or 
divisions respecting church government, discipline, or 
doctrine should hereafter arise between any members or 
reputed members of the said Church, or of any Congrega- 
tion, Consistory, Presbytery, or General Assembly of the 
same, then those persons adhering to and professing, 
respectively, the said discipline and government and the 
doctrines of the said confession and catechism, shall be 
deemed and taken, as against all persons who shall adhere 
to and profess any different discipline, government, or 
doctrines, to be the true Congregation, Consistory, Presby- 
tery, or General Assembly, as the case may be, of the said 
Church, and, as such, of right entitled to the possession 
and enjoyment of any funds, endowments, or other property 
or rights by law belonging to the said Church, or to the 
Congregation, Consistory, Presbytery, or General Assembly, 
in which any such questions or divisions shall have arisen. 

VII. And be it enacted that the General Assembly or 
Synod of the said Church shall at all times be composed 
of all acting ministers of the said Church and an acting or 
retired elder to be nominated by each consistory ; but the 
consistory of Cape Town may at all times nominate two 
elders. 

VIII. And be it enacted that no rule or regulations of 
the said Church, whether contained in the Schedule to this 
Ordinance or to be afterwards framed, shall have or possess 
any direct or inherent power whatever to affect, in any 
way, the persons or properties of any persons whomsoever. 
But all such rules and regulations shall be regarded in law 



152 



APPENDIX. 



in like manner as the rules and regulations of a merely- 
voluntary association, and shall be capable of affecting the 
persons or properties of such persons only as shall be found 
in the course of any action or suit before any competent 
court to have subscribed, agreed to, adopted, or recognized 
the said rules and regulations, -or some of them, in such 
manner as to be bound thereby in virtue of the ordinary 
legal principles applicable to cases of express or implied 
contract. 

IX. And be it enacted that no person or persons com- 
posing, complaining to, or giving testimony before any duly 
constituted judicatory of the said Church shall be liable to 
any action, suit, or proceeding at law, civil or criminal, at 
the instance of any member of the said Church, for or on 
account of any matter or thing, written or spoken by any 
such person or persons bona fide, and without malice, in 
reference to or upon the occasion of any scandal, offence, 
or other matter, real or alleged, which by the rules and 
regulations of the said Church for the time being should be 
reported to any such judicatory, and which any such judi- 
catory is empowered to investigate ; nor shall any action, 
suit, or proceeding at law be instituted for the purpose of 
preventing any such judicatory from pronouncing, in the 
case of any scandal or offence which shall be brought before 
it, and proved to its satisfaction, such spiritual censures 
as may in that behalf be appointed by the said Church, or 
for the purpose of claiming any damages or relief in regard 
to such censures, if the same shall have been pronounced. 

X. And be it enacted that it shall be lawful for the person 
or persons in whom, by the rules and regulations of the 
said Church for the time being, the possession or adminis- 
tration of any buildings, lands, funds, moneys, goods, or 
effects, belonging to any Congregation or Presbytery, or to 
the General Assembly, shall respectively be vested, to sue 
and be sued in all actions and suits relating to any matter 
or thing by any such officer or officers, respectively 
possessed or administered, as if the same were his or their 
private property, and in any criminal proceeding the 
property of any of the matters or things aforesaid may be 
laid in the person or persons who in any civil action or 
suit might sue or be sued in respect thereof. 

TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 



